Crochet business leads to scholarship fund

Brett Harrison spent a fair amount of time this year crocheting.

It’s something he learned as an eighth-grader, when he first decided homemade ski caps were cool. A friend taught him how to make his own, and Harrison has crocheted ever since.

But this year the Flathead High School senior put his hook to use for a good cause. He raised about $500 selling crocheted hats and used the money to start a scholarship fund for Flathead graduates.

Harrison’s entire senior year has been devoted to service. It actually began shortly after school got out last June, when he and Josh Schott, a friend from Whitefish High School, left for Uganda.

Harrison had wanted to go to Africa since seeing “The Elephants of Tsavo” in biology class. The documentary detailed the plight of pachyderms in Kenya, who have battled through everything from drought to poachers.

After seeing the film, Harrison was moved to help.

“I was interested in working with elephants,” he said. “I wanted to do something, a different kind of adventure.”

He learned Schott was hoping to go to Africa and decided to go along, although his friend’s mission differed from his. Harrison wanted to work with animals; Schott wanted to visit a war-torn country and help residents there.

Schott’s Internet research turned up information about Children’s Sure House, a nongovernmental organization that serves children and the elderly in Uganda. In June 2009, the boys, then 17, spent three weeks working for the organization in the village of Owangai.

In the mornings, they built a toilet. In the afternoons, they taught at a school about 100 yards away and visited families in the village.

It wasn’t quite what either youth had expected, Harrison said.

“I think we both had visions of grandeur. We wanted to help build a school,” he said. “But when we pooled our money together, we could just build a toilet.”

Still, Harrison said, they were actively building something that would improve people’s lives. And the trip had an unexpected blessing.

“We definitely had a lot of down time,” Harrison said. “It gave Josh and I time for reflection and evaluation about where we want our lives to go. At 17 years old, it’s just the perfect time for it.”

Harrison realized he wanted to live for others, whether they have two feet or four. When he got back to the United States, he began putting his resolution in action — by crocheting.

Originally the plan was to use the profits he made from selling his hats for a down payment on a coffee cart for the high school. With help from fellow Flathead High senior Dean Stimpson, Harrison hoped to sponsor a small scholarship out of the cart’s profits and donate the rest to a good cause.

“It was supposed to be a charity project at the school,” Harrison said.

But there was some technical holdup —something to do with sinks, he thinks — that prevented Flathead from getting a coffee cart.

That left Harrison with money on his hands. Between the hat sales and a dance he had deejayed to help with the coffee cart purchase, he had about $2,000 and an as-yet-undetermined cause to spend it on.

He and Stimpson decided to fulfill the idea of starting a scholarship fund, and the Sidney Kahl Memorial Scholarship — named for Harrison’s grandfather, who died in September 2009 —was born.

It’s going to be a Flathead Student Council scholarship, Harrison explained, and future groups can dedicate the scholarship to whomever they like.

A committee chose two recipients for this year’s award. Annie Cronk and Leland Fabel each will receive $500.

“It’s satisfying,” Harrison said simply.

He seems unaware of what he has accomplished this year — but that’s just Harrison, English teacher Sue Brown said.

“He’s the most humble person I think I’ve met,” she said.

Harrison will be use scholarships of his own next fall at Dartmouth College, where he plans to major in economics. From there he hopes to go into community development, specializing in wildlife conservation — “something with helping the other beings we share this planet with,” he said.

Harrison hopes to one day open his own wildlife sanctuary and to learn how to run and manage nongovernmental organizations.

“His life of contributing to others has only begun,” Brown said. “And he does so with such grace. He’s a pretty amazing kid.”

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.