$5 per cap is reason to give thanks

After a turkey feast for eight served up with a few nontraditional side dishes like okra, couscous and cornmeal porridge, Sarah Dak will wrap up the leftovers Thursday afternoon, put away the dishes and get down to business.

She has no interest in eating extra slices of pie, watching football or lounging around on Thanksgiving Day. Not when there is a bagful of colorful yarn calling her name.

"This is a blessing for my family," she says, showing off one of the dozens of hand-loomed snow hats she turned out in record time to help pay for her Thanksgiving feast, fill up her gas tank and take care of her electric bill. "How do you say thank you for such an opportunity?"

Sarah is not alone in her gratitude. Thanks to a Park City mother's business savvy and two girls who wanted to help families in need, about a dozen Sudanese refugee women in Salt Lake City have found a new way to stock their refrigerators and boost their self-esteem.

I recently joined the group for a Free Lunch of takeout chicken and cole slaw at LDS Hospital's Huntsman Education Center, where the women gather weekly to catch up on their looming and share stories of their new lives in Utah.

By creating hats for SnowCaps, a small business run by Danielle Lecher, 12, and Maime Graham, 11, the women have been able to feed their large families despite the dismal economy. At $5 a cap, Sarah recently earned $300 after making 60 hats one week.

"I knew not one single thing about sewing or how to use a loom when I started," she says with a broad smile, "but I am a fast learner. When you have to start your life over like I did, you are happy to learn."

The idea for SnowCaps came to Nicky Lecher, a native of South Africa, a few months ago when her daughter, Danielle, was looking for a way to earn some extra money for herself and charitable causes.

Initially, Danielle and her friend, Maime, loomed and sold hats themselves, but when demand for the colorful caps grew, Nicky wondered whether Sudanese refugees might be willing to make a few. She was put in touch with Susan Quaal, who has volunteered in the Sudanese community since war refugees began arriving in Salt Lake City from Kenyan camps 15 years ago.

"Earning $5 a cap can mean the difference between paying a bill and not paying it, buying food or not buying it," says Susan. She had already brought in a seamstress to teach a small group of women to run a sewing machine and create fabric purses to sell in art shops and bazaars.