What a week it was!
The Stitch Community celebrated its 10 year anniversary with a week-long series of events and activities coinciding with World Community Week from the 16th to 22nd of June 2024, celebrating the power of community to improve lives.
And what a week it was!
You can find more details about World Community Week here, but the general idea is that Stitch now has members in so many cities around the world, so instead of having one big party, we decided to have an event for the whole community, where everyone could get involved, no matter how big their local Stitch community is.
Community members around the world hosted events for members in their local area, encouraging members to come along and celebrate the power of community.Â
To show their support, members were asked to come along wearing red, and we had prizes on offer for members who submitted the Best Photo, who held the Best Celebration, and for the event with the Best Dressed members.
We saw an incredible response from Stitch members, with thousands of members attending activities in over a hundred different towns, cities, and neighborhoods worldwide.
The video below gives a quick recap of the events of the week:
The week was an amazing success, with over 124 dedicated in-person or virtual World Community Week events & activities held in 104 different towns, cities, and neighborhoods.Â
It wasn’t the numbers that told the story of the week, however. It was the photos!
Members across the community shared photos of the week with us, and you can find a gallery highlighting most of these photos if you scroll down the page. You’ll be amazed not just by the variety of activities and locations, but also by the extraordinary lengths some groups went to to dress up and get in the spirit of the celebrations.
As we mentioned earlier, prizes were available for the Best Dressed Crowd, the Best Photo, and the Best Celebration. Before announcing the prizewinners, however, we would like to highlight a few of the entries that we think deserve a special mention.
Special mentions
If you ask us, every single member who submitted photos of their activities deserves a prize, but we don’t have the space (or the prize money) to award one to everyone. There are, however, a few members who deserve a special mention for their enthusiasm, inventiveness, or their community spirit. They include:
- Debra from Padstow, NSW for being the Best Dressed Individual
- Anton from Taunton, UK for the Getting Into the Spirit award
- Debbie from Brooklyn, NY and the group from New York, for the Best Idea award
- Vivien from Sydney, NSW for the Biggest Event award, with 44 attendees
- Kerryn from Brisbane, QLD for the Cutest Photo award
- Darlene from Austin, TX for the Best Combination In-Person/Virtual Activity
For a more detailed explanation of each of the above, please watch our update video! You can also view the photos if you scroll down to the gallery below.
Prize winners
The competition was very tough, but the official prize winners for the competition were…
Best Celebration
The award for Best Celebration went to the event organized by Kim and Margarite in San Mateo, California. These crazy-in-a-good-way Stitchers went all out, with their very own theme, costumes, individual “Wanted” posters, karaoke, dancing, and more.
They even composed a song about Stitch for the event and created a video!
Congratulations Kim and Margarite, and all the members who made it such a special event.
Best Dressed Crowd
The award for Best Dressed Crowd was actually a tie between an event organized by Venus in Sydney, NSW, and one by Jeanine in Perth, Western Australia.
Both were deserving winners, but in the end the tie-breaker came down to the fact that the Perth community is much newer and smaller than it is in Sydney, which gave Jeanine the edge on this occasion. (Venus is famous for organizing incredible events, so we’re sure she’ll be back in the mix next year 😊).
Congratulations to Jeanine and all our Perth members for creating such a fantastic event, and for how far the community has come in such a short time!
Best Photo
And finally, the award for Best Photo goes to Mary and Mark from Los Angeles and their event in the San Fernando Valley. Just look at the love and effort that went into organizing this fantastic event!
Photo gallery
The prize-winning photos only provide a tiny glimpse of the breadth and variety of the events held by members all over the world during World Community Week.
From London to Leumeah, Fort Collins to Fort Lauderdale, and Seattle to Sunbury, Stitch members came out in droves to celebrate our wonderful community, and the photos they shared put a smile on everyone’s faces. Check them out in the gallery below!
I am so excited to learn about this group–I’m 3.5 months away from turning 50 and I know what I’m getting myself this year–a Stitch membership! 🙂
What a great comment WME, we can’t wait for you to join us!