BCNG Portals Page

BCNG Portals Page: "Local elder lends handiwork to little foreign noggins


By Bill Mickelson
Jul 05 2006

POULSBO — At age 94, Ida Puzon spends a large amount of time in her rocking chair as her legs tend to disagree with the idea of walking. Her hands, however, are completely inline with her ambition of philanthropy.

Since April, Puzon’s knitting needles have been busy at work, stitching all different sizes of youth stocking caps for the kids at Dickey’s Orphanage in Lhasa, Tibet, in the People’s Republic of China.

“I didn’t know who would be getting them, I make them for whoever,” Puzon said. “To me someone can use them, so I will make them.”

Over the years, Puzon has offered the products of her pastime for premature babies at Harrison Hospital in addition to the heads of her 23 great-grandchildren. But the idea of sending a box full of warmth to the Dickey Orphanage came from a group of her friends who visited Tibet in March.

“It was very poor,” Nita Johnson, one of the idea purveyors, said of the orphanage’s condition. “The rooms were probably no more than 10 feet by 10 feet, if that big. There were really no toys, no windows and no heat.”"