To stay safe during COVID-19, students at Whitney M. Young have remained on campus. Though it’s helped protect them, it’s also led to some frustration.

But Aliciakaye Bryant (Pharmacy Tech) had an idea of how to channel all that stress into something more positive.

So Bryant started a student-run crochet club.

“I’ve had experience in the past of running a crochet club. In high school, I had it for about a year,” she said. “I wanted to give the students the opportunity to learn this amazing craft. It’s good for coping, it’s good for just creating things.”

Bryant has been crocheting for about seven years after learning from her grandmother. She found it had a positive impact on her.

“I was like, ‘This is such a good thing for me to have, why don’t I just show it to everyone else?’” she said.

So she did. And since then, she’s had groups of students show up, some coming one day, some coming another. And it’s been more popular than her high school clubs ever were.

“This club is helpful because it is a coping mechanism,” she said. “It’s a way to engage the students…We want the students to be engaged. This isn’t just some school, it’s our home for now.”