'Miss Patty' has made 7,000 hats for students that ride her bus

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Patty Reitz, a bus driver for Clarence Central School District in New York, decided to use her time in a way that would make her students remember her forever, by warming their ears.

Miss Patty, as the students call her, has crocheted 7,083 hats over 30 years of service for the students and the school.

During her service, Miss Patty worked in the elementary school’s cafeteria as well. In 2005, her mother was hospitalized, so Patty started crocheting while caring for her mother, to kill time.

"I needed something to do," she said. Soon, Miss Patty took it up while waiting for the students to board her bus.

A high schooler started it all when he noticed Miss Patty on her first attempt.

"The one boy gets on the bus, and he goes 'what are you doing?' I said I’m making a hat. He said 'that would be great going down ski slopes at Holiday Valley.' So I said what color would you like? That started everything," Reitz told the local NBC affiliate.

She used to do either an elf hat with pompom or a sort of potato sack-shaped affair with tassels on the corners, using colored yarn and buying it all herself, and sometimes using gift cards that she received around Christmas time.

Third-grade teacher Deborah Bosworth said that Miss Patty cares. "She cares about her students."

"Any student that I’ve had that has been on Miss Patty’s bus gets a hat, and they also get a friend. Miss Patty is one of the favorites," she added.

Despite the huge number of hats she had already crocheted, Miss Patty says she doesn't plan to stop, and she’s already getting organized for next year’s bus riders.

“I’m going to do it until I can’t do it anymore,” she said.