Bernie's Mitten Maker
Sometimes you can just smile… and laugh… and marvel at people’s general goodness.
And you can feel good that an act of goodness was not turned into a reality TV show, a commercial to sell us junk we don’t need, or distorted in a way that makes that good thing not good anymore.
Think about all the little things that make you feel good - a handwritten note, a trip to an unknown place untouched by tourism, the state of Vermont, the early years of Facebook, a hike along the west coast of Ireland, your local bodega. These are the places of human connection, of deeper meaning. The places where you know the people and they know you.
Our economic model in the U.S. has become so commercialized, so efficient, so ruthless, that everything gets turned into a product. Nothing is safe from the “market’’ and the lurking hedge funds thirsting for the next deal.
But Jen Ellis (no relation) is doing it right.
You may not know Jen but you do know her mittens. You saw Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wearing those mittens at the inauguration of Joe Biden back in January of 2021.
It was typical Bernie; sitting outside the U.S. Capitol, arms folded against the freezing weather in his very-Bernie winter coat. He was masked up against the pandemic, sitting away from others, a little grumpy, but witnessing the Republic’s escape from a second Trump term.
And he was wearing mittens.
Then, if you were online, you started seeing images of Bernie wearing those mittens. Suddenly Bernie and his mittens were on the moon, at Yalta with Roosevelt and Churchill, with the Avengers superheroes. Really funny stuff.
You probably didn’t know, maybe until you listened to this week’s Conflict of Interest podcast :) that Jen Ellis made those mittens. She is a big fan of Bernie and gave them to him as a gift.
“I actually sent them to Bernie back in 2016,’’ she said, “and it created a mini-sensation inside Vermont.’’ It was all over the Instagram feeds of Vermonters. The mittens were a celebrity, but the national media didn’t catch up until 2021.
After the inauguration, the Internet, the world over, went crazy and Ellis was on the receiving end of a “weird kind of fame,’’ in her words.
The phone rang off the hook. She received thousands of voicemails and emails with offers from corporate sponsors. As is the way with our modern times, lots of folks wanted to take advantage of the potential aggregation of millions of new customers.
Jen Ellis is a grade school teacher in Vermont. She didn’t expect much when she sent Bernie the mittens. She is a “crafter,’’ giving new life to old sweaters with her Singer sewing machine and scissors.
When the Internet memes hit like a sledgehammer, Ellis had a decision to make: curl up in a ball, shut the front door, and protect her private life with her wife and daughter or...
“Or I could tell my story my way,’’ she said, “because, in today’s world, people will just make up the most awful things about you.’’
So she embraced the mini-fame in a way that worked for her. She decided to accept a few of the many offers, especially those that would benefit local non-profits. Vermont Teddy Bear agreed to make the mittens in bulk and donate a portion of the proceeds to Outright Vermont, which works for LGBT young people. The Singer sewing people sent her a new machine.
Then she decided to write a book. It’s called Bernie’s Mitten Maker. It’s not just a description of her experience going from an unknown teacher to a fully involved public person. It is a full-blown memoir complete with battles over the hard things in her life: abuse, infertility, and burnout. The book is brave. And it’s worth the read.
I found it wonderfully refreshing to talk to someone on my podcast who has embraced fame in a balanced way. It’s easy to root for Jen to cash in a little bit and use her platform to help others. Which she is doing without losing herself in the process.
Next step for Ellis? Graduate school to become a therapist. Good luck.
Want more? Check out the podcast episode right here.
