About Those Wooly Mittens Wore By Bernie Sanders

Sunday, January 31st, 2021 -- 11:08 AM

About those wooly mittens that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders wore to the presidential inauguration, sparking endless quirky memes across social media?

They’ve helped to raise $1.8 million in the last five days for charitable organizations in Sanders’ home state of Vermont, the independent senator announced Wednesday.  The sum comes from the sale of merchandise with the Jan. 20 image of him sitting with his arms and legs crossed, clad in his brown parka and recycled wool mittens.  Sanders put the first of the so-called “Chairman Sanders” merchandise, including T-shirts, sweatshirts and stickers, on his campaign website Thursday night and the first run sold out in less than 30 minutes, he said. More merchandise was added over the weekend and sold out by Monday morning, he said.  Sanders’ mittens were made by Jen Ellis, a Vermont elementary school teacher who has a side business making mittens out of recycled wool.

His inauguration look, also featuring the winter jacket made by Burton Snowboards, sparked countless memes from the photo taken by Agence France-Presse: The former presidential candidate could be found on social media timelines taking a seat on the subway, the moon and the couch with the cast of “Friends,” among other creative locales.  Ellis said on social media over the weekend that Sanders called to tell her that “the mitten frenzy” had raised an enormous amount of money for Vermont charities although she was not authorized to disclose the amount, yet. (AP)

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