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Cheryls Cozy’s Mittens are there to help keep folks warm

Cheryls Cozy’s Mittens are being offered once again to help keep folks' hands warm this winter.

They can be found in boxes recently reinstalled in three locations in the Town of Amherst – in front of Amherst town hall, in the Rotary Park near the food pantry and near Tantramar Chevrolet.

The project is led by the Empowering Beyond Barriers Committee, which is aided by Maggie’s Place, Tantramar Chevrolet, local high school students, the SOAR Community Health Board, Bill Dow Trucking and Excavating and the Town of Amherst.

The project began during the bitterly cold winter of 2018-2019 when the committee began giving away free mittens and hats by attaching plastic bags containing them with yarn to streetlights in downtown Amherst.

It continued the next year, though it was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The following year, local high school students made the boxes that for the second year in a row are now full of mittens that are free for the taking.

Anyone needing mittens can just go to one of the boxes and take a pair. Anyone wishing to make a donation can just place a pair, preferably in a plastic bag, inside the boxes as well.

The project is named after the late Cheryl Lefler, the longtime treasurer of the Empowering Beyond Barriers Committee who friends describe as a “lovely person who did a lot for vulnerable people in the community.”