Sew For Hope Kids

Hello Beautiful People,

We are HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY to be resuming our Sew for Hope meetings on Saturday, May 1 at 10:00 a.m. We will be following CDC guidelines. We’re sorry, but only those who’ve been vaccinated are invited. We’re mostly older folk and some of us have preexisting conditions which make us more vulnerable. We’re also requesting that masks be worn. Social distancing will be practiced as much as possible. We will not be sitting at the same small table for lunch. Every one can either eat at their sewing station whenever they get hungry, or find a space they’re comfortable moving to.

Please note our shortened hours. From this day forth, we’ll be meeting from 10 am – 2 pm.

We meet at St. Stephen Lutheran Church 2198 North Meridian Road, Tallahassee, FL  32303, just south of John Knox . (Directions)

Activities – We’ve received fabric donations which need to be sorted and put away or given away. We have several quilt tops to be paired with backing fabric and measured for batting. We just received quilt tops from Lois that she needs help completing. We were given oodles of cut squares from Suzy. We can either make kits, or start sewing and making quilt tops. Plus, I think we already have a container of squares at the church. Lastly, if you have an unfinished charity quilt, you can bring that to work on. So you see, we have plenty to do.

We’ll have quilting books and magazines to give away.

At the present time, HOPE Community has enough quilts in their stock pile. Lately, all the quilts we’ve been making at home have been donated to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, aka The Bunk Bed Project. Those quilts and blankets can be dropped off at any of the three Living Harvest Thrift Stores. Make sure you tell them and label them for Sleep in Heavenly Peace or the Bunk Bed Project. The bunk bed throws should be approximately 40 x 60 inches.

Thanks for all you do,
Cynthia and her Sewing Sisters

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” – Maya Angelou

Happy New Year dear friends!

Well! We made it through 2020. Whew! We’re glad that’s over, because it was like sitting through a horror movie, except we couldn’t get up and leave.

That being said, Sew for HOPE (S4H) is still going strong, which makes me so proud. We’re going on 13 years of philanthropic sewing for those who have fallen on hard times. We’d like to thank Mission Quilters at Epiphany Lutheran Church for continuing to donate their cushy handmade quilts to S4H. The last batch was given to Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP). Also, thank you to St. Stephen Lutheran Church for continuing to give us a home. We are not holding meetings there, but we are using the space allotted us as a drop off/pick up location for our group. And of course we’re still storing our fabric, supplies and equipment there.

Thanks to all our ladies who are sewing at home, we’re managing to get a lot accomplished. We appreciate our friends who have long-arm sewing machines because they make our lives so much easier: to name a few, Julie Frederickson, Christy Gregg, Suzy Smith, and Marianne Clower, who owns The Quilt Peddler. They all do beautiful quilting.

Thanks for all you do,

Cynthia Seyler, Founder
Sew for Hope

Information on where to take quilts for Sleep in Heavenly Peace, see here.

No surprise  – Sew for Hope will not be meeting in person in November. But we have lots of good stuff to share with you. First is a lovely thank you note from Diane Fogarty of Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

I have been overwhelmed by the number of quilts Sew for Hope has contributed to SHP for the kids. My husband and I made a delivery today for three boys,( 7, 15 and 17) and brought three quilts today. All the boys were happy to receive something home made especially for them. The 15 year old said “I can’t believe someone made these quilts for us. I will treasure it forever.” He melted my heart!

A million thanks to everyone working on these quilts!!! And thanks to Donna for a wonderful article. She captured the mission and building process of SHP beautifully.

Diane Fogarty

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The last newsletter not only resulted in Diane’s lovely thank you, it also inspired this poem!

Piecework
For Julie F.

A woman is piecing a quilt
for a child who has no bed.

Another will bind the edges,
another will stitch the layers,
and other good people
are building the bed.

The woman feeds the bright pieces
to the hungry needle
and thinks of a child
asleep on the floor.
Does she sleep in her clothes?
Is his mother sick?

She sews another seam
and clips the thread,
daydreaming her hands
are smoothing the quilt
and soothing the child
in a newly made bed.

She imagines she is telling
a bedtime story about
the building of the bed,
the sewing of the quilt,
the day the bed came,
and what the child said
before falling asleep
and sleeping in peace.

Marda Messick, 2020

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John Cousins, the head of Tallahassee’s Sleep in Heavenly Peace project, wrote to say he had shared how the quilting groups were supporting SHP when he was interviewed for an article in the Tallahassee Democrat about SHP being nominated for this year’s Giving Tuesday funding.

The Beatitude Foundation hosts, plans and underwrites Giving Tuesday each year through the Tallahassee Democrat. #GIVETLH separately spotlights 9 local nonprofits in the Tallahassee Democrat.  Each of the organizations will receive a $2,000 grant just for being nominated. The local community then chooses the top 3 and they are announced on giving Tuesday. The 1st prize is $10,000, 2nd prize is $5,000 and 3rd prize is $2,000.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace Tallahassee Chapter has been selected to be one of 9 nonprofits to compete for $10K in awards.   Should they be voted #1, this will enable them to build another 50 bunk beds or 100 kids off the floor in our town!!!!  Giving Tuesday falls on Tuesday, December 1st this year. Watch the Tallahassee Democrat on how to vote!

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And last, but not least, many of you have been quilting up a storm. Here are some photos that were sent in to Sew for Hope.Click on quilt tops to see larger display.

Donna Dye’s quilts

Quilt tops are by Suzy Smith

Sew for HOPE is still not meeting in person but that doesn’t mean great things aren’t happening in sewing around the area. Rags to Bags, a project of Sustainable Tallahassee, stopped making bags when COVID-19 struck and started making masks. Since March, 9,900 kits were picked up from their Thursday drop-off site, 14,247 masks were dropped off and they distributed 12,052 hand-made masks plus 93,000 Department of Health masks. Phenomenal job! They have decided to end the drive-through after the October 29 date, donating all masks on hand to the Power of Life foundation event in Jacksonville on 10/31. They hope to begin making bags again in January.

Since many of our quilts are going to Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SIHP), Donna Dye decided to visit one of the SIHP bunk bed builds. Here is her report:

The Bunk Bed Project
By Donna J. Dye

It’s difficult to imagine but there are children, including teenagers, who have a home but do not have a bed, pillow, and associated linens. It is not just happening in third world countries but also right here in the United States, including Tallahassee. In 2012, this unfortunate situation was recognized by residents of Kimberly, Idaho who wanted “a safe, comfortable place” for children ages 3 to 18 to lay their heads. A national 501(c)(3) was formed and the rest, as they say, is history. Corporate sponsors were found, volunteers were solicited, the construction process was established, and application guidelines were developed. Sleep In Heavenly Peace (SIHP) was off and running with its motto…No kid sleeps on the floor in our town®.

John Cousins, a Tallahassee resident, learned of the organization and established the SIHP Tallahassee Chapter in 2018. The chapter serves the Big Bend area and meets two Saturdays a month for “Build Day” during which 9 to 12 beds (accommodates 18 to 24 children – remember these are bunk beds) are constructed. The Build Day meetings are generally held in the parking lot of a corporate sponsor. The construction begins with raw lumber (no kits for SIHP!) which is measured, cut, sanded, drilled, screws/nails inserted, stained, and branded with the SIHP logo. All the finished components are logically organized so that the bunk beds can be readily assembled at the applicant’s home on a pre-arranged day.

Tallahassee Build Days usually have 25 to 45 volunteers, including staff from the corporate sponsor. The Build Day site is organized into 12 or 14 teams with each team responsible for a specific component of the construction process. Each team has a team leader who has to know the entire bunk bed construction process as he/she is not always the team leader for only one construction aspect. No babysitter, no problem – bring your child (over the age of 5) to a Tallahassee Build Day and introduce him/her to community service. One Saturday had two five-year olds who were put to work counting out 20 screws and placing them in a baggie, only to be repeated again and again!

SIHP Tallahassee connected with Sew For Hope in 2019 and SFH began sharing its hand-crafted quilts with SIHP as well as its original mission of quilts for children living at the Big Bend Homeless Coalition. SFH learned that Big Bend Homeless Coalition had an abundance of SFH quilts so it was decided SFH would concentrate on quilts approximately 45″ by 60″ for the Bunk Bed Project and to date has donated many, many quilts to SIHP. So many children are proud recipients of a hand-crafted bed and a hand-crafted quilt. Three of the SFH ladies are also members of the American Sewing Guild, Tallahassee Chapter and always share (i.e., show off) their quilts made for Sleep In Heavenly Peace.

A recent Saturday found ASG/SFH member Donna Dye, her husband Gary Sharpe, and their friend Vince Trimarco at a Build Day. The guys were actually put to work on one of the construction teams while Donna spoke with two SIHP members about the organization and the building process. Speaking as Donna…I was extremely impressed with the number of volunteers, the orderliness of the build process, the dedication of people, the volunteers knew what to do and never slowed down the 1 1/2 hours I was there. WOW, I was impressed!! Several SIHP workers told me the children are overwhelmed with the gift of a bed and linens, they are overcome with joy, some children and their parent shed tears of joy at the gifts. When her grandchild received his quilt, a grandmother cried about the “labor of love by some lady.”

How can you help, you ask? Well, make quilt(s) to donate, make a monetary donation to SIHP, go to a Build Day, purchase readymade twin size bed linens/pillows/bed coverings. Visit the Sleep In Heavenly Peace website www.SHPbeds.org or contact John Cousins, Tallahassee SIHP president at john.cousins@shpbeds.org for more information about volunteering and Tallahassee’s specific needs.

John Cousins, SIHP Tallahassee president and Donna Dye with American Sewing Guild and Sew For Hope holding one of her quilts.

A completed bunk bed. The black markings on the bed are the branded SIHP logo which is the very last step of the construction process.