Cold hands, warm heart – or so the saying goes. I guess it’s true, because the cold hands of children in need have warmed the hearts of some dedicated knitters.

Project Warm Hands, an event developed by Meals for Me, is in its fourth year of providing handmade mittens, hats and scarves to children who otherwise might go through the winter with cold fingers and ears.

November may be hunting season for some, but for Meals for Me it was knitting season. When the call goes out in the monthly newsletter, Just For You, knitting needles start clacking across four counties.

The idea for the knitting project came about because of a childhood memory.

“One day I was thinking about how, when I was a kid, people used to hang mittens on trees for children who were in need,” said Roberta Macko, director of volunteer services at Eastern Agency on Aging.

“I thought doing something like this would be helpful to young and old alike,” she said. “It makes an intergenerational connection.”

The items are collected through the beginning of December and distributed to area shelters, churches and schools around Christmas.

Sometimes schools keep some mittens on hand – no pun intended – for children who forget their mittens at home but still want to play outside at recess.

“Soon, there will be snowmen waiting to be made and little, busy hands need to be kept warm,” said Gail Ward, director of nutrition at Eastern Agency.

Meals for Me serves many people who are homebound but still want to remain part of the community, said Ward.

“This is a great way to help them do that, plus many of them have been knitting all their lives but now, with their families grown, have no one to knit for anymore,” she said.

Ward is quick to point out that it is not just the homebound that work on Project Warm Hands.

Glenice Bernot, Meals for Me dining room manager at Holden Square, recalls the little pink mitten-and-hat set she had made.

“It was a cold day and I was on my way to the shelter with it when I saw a woman with a little girl on the street,” said Bernot.

“They obviously didn’t have much and the child had no hat or mittens, so I offered the set to them. When I saw the look on the little girl’s face, that did it,” she recalled.

Bernot has been participating in Project Warm Hands ever since.

Ward gently rifles through a bag of colorful and snuggly-looking handmade items, admiring each one. For now, they are being stored in her office at Eastern Agency on Aging.

“Usually, these things are distributed in the area where they are made,” she said. “But sometimes they land here and, I must admit, I love seeing them. They are like little personal pieces of art.”

Hundreds of items are donated each year. Sometimes if a person wants to get involved but can’t knit, they buy some mittens, said Ward.

“It’s just a wonderful program and everyone loves it,” she said.

That is certainly the case with Myrtle Hancock, 93, who donated 30 pairs of mittens to the project.

“I was taught to knit by a blind woman when I was 11 years old,” she said. “If she dropped a stitch, I had to pick it up and one day she said ‘If you’re going to help me anyway, you might as well learn to knit yourself.'”

And learn she did. “Every time I sit down, I pick up something and work on it,” Hancock said. She prefers crocheting to knitting because things make up faster allowing her to make more “so I can help more people.”

The knitters seem to get as much out of the project as the children.

“I do it because I love it,” said Bernot. “And it does your heart good to go out and see a kid with a hat and mittens on that you made.”

Frannie Lord, 73, agrees.

“I just love doing it,” she said. “I always think of little kids with their ears uncovered and I think to myself that they need a hat.”

Lord donated 12 crocheted hats this year. Getting a jump on the season, she made some of them last summer while sitting on the deck, she said, or while riding in the car on trips.

Like Lord, some others don’t wait until November to start knitting, either.

Getting an early start on the season keeps Laura Alto, 78, busy all year.

One woman made 30 pairs of mittens last summer because she would be in Florida when Project Warm Hands got under way and she didn’t want to miss out on helping.

“I’m starting to knit now for next year because the kids just seem to be growing faster all the time,” said Hancock. “And there is always a need.”

That there is.

Carol Higgins is director of communications at Eastern Agency on Aging. For more information on Project Warm Hands or Meals for Me, check www.eaaa.org or call Gail Ward at 941-2865.