Ready to Hand community outreach efforts always welcome community participation, volunteers and donations!

The Center for Creative Works:  Ready to Hand proudly partners with the Center for Creative Works, a special studio for artists with developmental disabilities.  Each week RTH brings accessible looms to CCW, and CCW artists visit RTH to weave SAORI-way and develop their textile skills.   RTH maintains a rotating exhibit of art produced by CCW artists, including woven tapestries, embroidered pillows, paintings, woodwork, ceramics, and silk-screened notecards and T-shirts, all of which are for sale to the general public.  We welcome community participation and support in this project - please contact us to find out how you can get involved!

Weaving for Wintershelter:  Each winter during the emergency shelter season (December-March), Ready to Hand offers free monthly community weaving sessions:  24 scarves for the 24 beds in the neighborhood Wintershelter at Trinity Memorial Church.  Join us to help keep our homeless neighbors warm!

Weaving Scholarships:  Ready to Hand offers weaving scholarships to low-income students and adults, most of whom live within walking distance of Ready to Hand's inner-city location.  In return, each scholarship student is asked to contribute one woven scarf for sale in the gallery, to help fund their successor in the program.    We depend on financial support from the community to help support the cost of the tuition, equipment and materials that enables these special neighbors to participate in our weaving programs. 

Ready to Hand's work with disabled, homeless and low-income weavers is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.  Contributions on behalf of Ready to Hand paid to Fractured Atlas are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.  To make a donation, please go to:  https://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/3986.

Ready to Hand in our schools and recreation centers:  RTH frequently visits after-school programs at neighboring public schools and recreation centers with weaving supplies and materials for recycled art programs..  We are always glad of an extra pair of hands (or more!) when we spend time with the terrifically creative kids from the Chester Arthur School, Greenfield School and LIberty Charter School.   If you would like to join us as we make art with the kids, or have ideas about bringing us to your school, please contact Leslie at saoriphiladelphia@gmail.com.

The Resource Exchange:  RTH partners with The Resource Exchange in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, a non-profit reuse center dedicated to promoting creative reuse, recycling, and resource conservation by diverting valuable materials from the waste stream and redirecting them to artists, builders, educators, and the general public.   Ready to Hand and The Resource Exchange currently seeks a grant (and or community donations) in support of the purchase of a commercial fabric cutter for use in rag-rug making by weavers from the Center for Creative Works.   If you have a rag-rug fabric cutter to share, or can otherwise assist us in obtaining one of these cutters, please contact Leslie as soon as possible. For additional information about The Resource Exchange, contact them at 267.997.0060 or info@theresourceexchange.org

Past Partnerships:  include The Welcome Threads project and the Welcome Church, a pilot homeless entrepreneurship project. Homeless neighbors were welcomed into the studio to learn textile printing, weaving, basic textile and craft design and marketing skills, which were exhibited and sold in the Ready to Hand gallery, at local craft shows and shops, and online.  The Welcome Threads project was supported by micro-grants from Congregation Rodeph Shalom, The Welcome Church, and the Louisville Institute.  

Thank you for whatever support - large or small - you can provide to these programs!

Wish List 

Our community education and outreach efforts are extensive, and we welcome in-kind donations of all manner of supplies and tools.  Our current wish list includes:

• yarns (all fibers and quantities) , especially cotton, rayon, silk and knitting wools (not rug wool at this time)
• weaving looms
• weaving, knitting and crochet tools:  weaving bobbins and shuttles (stick or boat), heddle and reed hooks, weaving temples, knitting needles and crochet hooks
• felting and/or spinning supplies:  wool roving (all colors and quantities) , drop spindles, large spools
• printmaking supplies (small press, printing blocks and cutting tools, water-based inks)
• dress forms and mannequins, wood hangers, bamboo poles, steel rods
• children's art supplies, including crayons (any quantity, any condition) , water-soluble (washable) markers, Sharpies (all colors), drawing paper, tissue paper, construction paper, paints, feathers, beads, glitter
• hot plate, hostess warming tray, Osterizer blender, clean Atlas or Imperia pasta cutter
• office supplies:  paper cutter, card stock paper
• wrapping supplies:  Kraft paper, rolls of white paper

We have a limited amount of storage space, and therefore cannot accept drop-off donations without prior approval.   Please contact Leslie at: saoriphiladelphia@gmail.com to discuss donations of materials.

Ready to Hand: SAORI Philadelphia, 731 South 22nd St, Philadelphia, PA 19146

www.readytohand.org / saoriphiladelphia@gmail.com   267.273.0636

"Weaving community together one neighbor at a time"