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Nanaimo athlete building Tay’s Team for sick kids

Spider-Man, Princess Elsa, Elmo among the knit hats Taylor Snowden has crocheted.
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Taylor Snowden has started Tay’s Team, a community project where she crochets hats for sick children. (KARL YU/The News Bulletin)

A swimmer from Nanaimo is building a team intended to strengthen and support sick children.

Taylor Snowden had a family friend who was diagnosed with leukemia and wanted to let him know she was thinking about him. She crocheted a knit hat based on the Disney movie The Incredibles, and has continued creating the caps as part of a community project, she’s calling Tay’s Team.

“At Christmas time when I learned that our friend had been diagnosed … I’m a starving student, I’m like, ‘How can I help out?’ I can’t give him money or I can’t buy him anything and I had taken up crocheting blankets, so I thought, ‘Well, he’s really into superheroes, I’ll try and make him a superhero hat that he can wear in the wintertime if he starts to lose his hair,’” said Snowden.

The aim of Tay’s Team, Snowden said, is to give the children a team to belong to, as their illnesses often lead to withdrawing from sports teams and extra-curriculars. By wearing the hats, it’s a reminder that the community is thinking about them, she said.

“I’m a varsity athlete and without my team I can’t be successful as I am … having a team atmosphere and support is critical in recovery and you need to know that someone cares about you and that you have people behind you,” said Snowden.

Snowden crochets everything from Spider-Man to Princess Elsa (of Frozen fame). She also takes hat requests and has a request of her own.

“If people want to contribute to Tay’s Team, I’m always accepting donations of yarn,” said Snowden. “I do support myself through my project and if people want to learn to crochet or if they are in crochet or knit and they want to make hats to donate to Tay’s Team, that would be really appreciated.”

Snowden has donated hats to hospitals in Vancouver, Nanaimo and San Diego.

For more information, search for @TaysTeam2017 on Facebook.



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Karl Yu

About the Author: Karl Yu

After interning at Vancouver Metro free daily newspaper, I joined Black Press in 2010.
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