When my youngest son was in the first grade, weather permitting, I would walk the one block from the office where I worked over to my mother’s apartment and pick him up for the walk home.

It was on these walks that he and I would discuss our respective days and play silly games. One of our favorites was to think up uses for an imaginary product we called “Multiply by Zero.”

Zero has long been one of my favorite numbers, in no small part because of the the magical property of zero which transforms any number multiplied by zero into zero.

It is like a magical multiplication eraser that can overpower just about anything.

So as my son and I would wend our way home, we would think up products where eradication or complete annihilation was the goal. Weed killers, wrinkle creams, laundry detergent; all you needed was a bottle, a jar, or a quarter cup of the concentrate, and “Multiply by zero” would kill the weeds, eliminate the wrinkles, or dispense with all the dirt.

Fast forward to this spring: In the run up to Memorial Day, I came across an organization called “Soldier’s Angels.” The purpose, as stated at their website is to make sure that no soldier goes unloved.

As part of that mission, they have a VA Crochet & Craft Team, and Deb, who heads this up, was kind enough to send me the following information:

Soldiers Angels does not send any yarn made blankets to the troops. We have been asked not to because the yarn gets tangled in the equipment. We send all of our items to Veterans facilities stateside.
Thanks so much for your interest!

Our lapghans measure about 36×48. We do have some VA’s that requests larger sizes so any size is great. We have no set patterns so use your favorite. Please use washable,dryable yarns in any color(s). Once you have your gift(s) ready to mail, contact me and I will give you an address, you mail your item directly to that VA Facility. We make and send all of our items all year long. I have included some suggested patterns for our smaller projects. We also use patterns from bevscountrycottage.com . There is some great patterns for the crocheter and the knitter so check the site out.

We also have many Veterans Hospitals requesting baby blankets for our pregnant Vets. We also have requests for winter scarves. We also have requests for prayer shawls.

Blessings, Deb

She also gave me an email address, so if you don’t find all of the answers you need at the website you can make contact to get your questions answered at: crochet@soldiersangels.org

Currently, Soldiers’ Angels has 1461 heroes awaiting adoption.

I really think that is a number we need to multiply by zero.