1. One in every eight babies in the U.S. is born premature, and I was part of that statistic. I
was born six and a half weeks early with underdeveloped lungs and a low chance of survival. Hi,
I am Danielle Chiavelli, and today I will be talking to you about my contribution to premature
babies; I made hats for the pre-term babies as well as collected money for the March of Dimes.
Prior to beginning my project, I researched my topic of premature babies. Through my
research, I learned more about pre-term babies and the early stages of their difficult lives. I
discovered that every baby leaves the hospital with a hat on his or her head; however, none of
those hats are purchased. All of the hats are donated. After I learned this information, I decided
that I wanted to help this cause.
I actually created two products to display my work; I kitted 100 hats for premature
babies, and I raised over $100 for the March of Dimes. I chose to make 100 hats because my
research taught me that about 100 premature babies are born at Northside Cherokee annually,
and I donated my hats to that hospital. As I mentioned before, I chose these products because I
was born premature, and someone made a hat for me, which I still have today. Similarly,
somebody also donated money to the March of Dimes that funded the research to create the
technology that helped save my life.
I felt the need to help preemies just as another giving person had helped me. First, I
collected money for the March of Dimes by going door to door in my neighborhood because
none of the stores that I went to would permit me to stand outside and ask for donations.
Creating the hats was much more time consuming. Each hat takes about an hour to make with a
loom. This video will allow you to further understand the process of knitting a hat. [SHOW
VIDEO] The video that I created shows a quick step by step overview of how I made the hats.
Casting on is the first step. To cast on, I begin by wrapping the yarn around the peg. Then, I

2. continue to wrap the yarn around all of the pegs. When I am done, I push down the loops that I
made. The second step shows how I make the cuff of the hat. To make the cuff, I fold the hat
over itself and put the bottom loops on the pegs. When that part is done, I lift the bottom loops
up and over the top loops. Then, I push the reaming loops down. Next, I have to make the middle
of the hat, which is the third step. Similarly to what I did earlier, I push down the loops. Then, I
wrap the yarn around the pegs. This time, I pull the bottom loop up and over the top loop. After I
completed this step on all of the pegs, I again push the remaining loops down. The final step is
finishing the hat. To finish the hat, I cut the yarn. Then, I cut a piece of yarn that is long enough
to wrap around all of the pegs. I put the yarn through all of the loops of yarn that are already
there. Similarly to what I did in the beginning, I take all of the loops off of the pegs. Finally, I
pull the extra yarn tight, tie the knot, and turn the hat right side out. Each hat takes about an hour
to make with a loom.
I chose a project facilitator whom I thought would be able to help me throughout this
long process; my facilitator is Cynthia Meisner. I chose her because she is a labor and delivery
nurse at Northside Hospital, and she has experience around all sorts of babies that were just born.
However, she was not able to help me as much as I would have liked. Mrs. Meisner helped me
by sharing some information about her job and the jobs of other nurses around her, but I did not
get to see her very often. We both have extremely busy schedules, so it was difficult to meet
frequently. This was one of the challenges that I faced. Another one of my biggest challenges
was the fact that no stores would let me collect money in front of their entrances. I have seen
several other groups collecting money in front of these stores before. For example, Kroger would
not even give me the time of day even though I have seen people asking for donations in front of

3. this business before. This part of my process was very disheartening because nobody seemed to
want to help me help others.
From this project, I have learned that I have good commitment skills as well as a strong
will to help others. However, I also learned that it is difficult to find time to work on other
projects outside of school, sports, and work because there are only so many hours in the day.
With soccer every day after school, I found this project to be very difficult to complete. Mrs.
Meisner helped me come to a conclusion. I do not want to pursue a career in neonatal nursing.
She told me that the job can be very saddening. I know I will get attached to all of the babies,
and I will be heartbroken if something happens to any of them. I cannot be in a career field that
makes me upset to go to work every day. While completing my project, I also shadowed a
speech therapist. Shadowing her made me quickly realize that this was the career choice for me.
Overall, this project helped me learn a lot about myself; however, I also learned mounds
about premature babies. I would have never had the opportunity for this learning stretch if I was
not assigned to do this project. Unlike many of my peers, I actually enjoyed completing my
senior project. I enjoyed knitting hats in order to help premature babies. I challenge all of you to
do some form of community service in the near future. You may be surprised how good it will
make you feel about yourself. Thank you so much for your time, and I hope you have enjoyed
everything that I have shared with you today.