Just how much love can be put into a sweater?

Aarshia Jain, a junior at Warsaw Community High School and member of the Kosciusko Youth Leadership Academy, wants to find out. As a service project for KYLA she developed a project called “Love In A Sweater.”

Her mission is to make sure everybody has something warm to help them through the harshest of winter. The goal is to collect at least 500 sweaters to be given back to the community in the fall/winter of 2015.

The collection has begun with collection boxes set up all over Warsaw and in over 20 cities all over the United States. Jain is planning on getting sweaters from about 16 countries around the world to spread the message and inspire hope in other places. She is being assisted by family and friends.

“Please help, help others. We depend completely on your donations so as you clean out your closet, think of us and the warmth you’ll be giving at least one more fellow human being as you give a sweater away,” says Jain.

Jain’s original project idea was a food drive, but after talking with her mother Dr. Neeta Jain she learned her mother was seeing a lot of patients coming in without warm clothing during the winter. That gave her the idea. “Everybody knows the sight, you see kids and adults every winter walking to their home, to work, or to dinner in just a T-shirt, when there’s still snow on the ground,” stated Jain on the website promoting the project: www.loveinasweater.org.

She is asking the public to help someone else by donating a sweater that is no longer worn. “You can help make the world just a little bit brighter and cozier, sweater by sweater,” she states.

When she says sweater, she means any kind of sweater: pullovers, cardigans, sweatshirts, crewnecks and hoodies. These items can be new or slightly used.

Jain stated once the sweaters have been collected the laundromat at Warsaw Community High School and Wolford Cleaners will be washed and/or dry cleaned, folded and arranged by size. The collection will be distributed in an open sweater week for individuals to come and take the sweaters as they are needed.

Financial donations will also be accepted with 100 percent received going completely back into buying more sweaters. Any financial donations can be mailed to Warsaw Community High School, 1 Tiger Lane, Warsaw, IN 46580, with “love in a Sweater” marked in the memo.

For further information, questions or to find out how else a person can help contact Jain at [email protected]