Greetings Volunteers & Donors!

Do you have a few extra minutes to spare or some extra fabric to share? A little generosity goes a long way when it comes to sewing for charity. Our primary purpose is to use our God-given skills to serve the needs of others through our crafting talent and supply an outlet for all volunteers to take part no matter their skill level.  We strive to work as a group during meetings and individually at our homes. We continue to be self-funded and rely on the generous donations of our members and others.  

We continue to meet on Thursday mornings at 9:30 a.m., as often as possible.   The monthly evening meetings continue on the 3rd Tuesday night at 7:00 pm.  Please feel free to invite friends to come with you or join in by working at home.  

Over the summer we have been able to: 

• Brought 61 DFG kits to Fond Blanc Orphanage in Haiti and Livingstone, Zambia! 
• Fine-tuned the Angel Gowns and bonnets pattern for donated wedding dresses!
• Connected with The Meadowlands nursing home allowing them to complete packing on Mini-blankets and Sharing Hearts!
• Delivered over 150 bibles and 5 boxes of Christian literature to Love Packages for overseas distribution!
• Sewed 48 pillowcases for Foster children
• Sewed bedrolls, comfort pillows, blankets, hats and Sharing Hearts for Children's hospital
• Collected bags of fabric scraps to fill dog beds sewn by one of our members.

 

Busy Hands 4 All Priority Plan for 2018-19

Our 2018-19 crafting will focus on helping Days for Girls, SHARE pregnancy and infant loss center, New Hope Resource Center at Morning Star Church, a Medicaid only Nursing Home and local animal rescue agencies.  We may add charities as a need arises.

1. Days for Girls - We are pursuing outlets in the USA, possibly Indian reservation or Prison ministries. We plan to temporarily convert to a component group focused on making quality shields and liners and offer them to other chapters who are in need. The kit components we have will be used for future kits for Haiti or another mission trip.
2. SHARE - We will continue to make Angel Gowns from donated wedding gowns or purchased fabric for distribution by SHARE in Missouri.  We are pleased to announce that 18 gowns were delivered in September!
3. New Hope Resource Center at Morning Star Church - We have been requested to supply them monthly with tulle scrubbies and dishcloths (knitted or crocheted).  We are also seeking knitters and crocheters to fill their request for prayer shawls.
4. Medicaid Nursing Home Christmas Project - We will be supplying a nursing home with walker bags for 28 women and 14 men.  We are collecting personal hygiene items, gifts and small things to be used for bingo prizes.  
5. Animal Rescue - This is our outlet for leftover materials. We will make dog beds from donated sweatshirts or sweaters and throw pillows, dog toys from jeans and tennis balls. Please continue to save your fabric scraps for the pet bed filling.
6. Love Packages  - We are continuing to collect Bibles and Christian books and materials to be sent overseas via Love Packages in Butler, Ill.

Areas being researched - Thestreetpeople.org - make washcloth hygiene kits for distribution; make foster care children bags with pillowcases and hygiene kits.

We are discontinuing the following projects until a need arises: Teeny Tears mini blankets and hats, Sharing Hearts,  

knit/crochet preemie hats & Children's Hospital bedrolls and comfort pillows 

Materials Needed for the 2018-19 Projects 

• Fabric for walker bags - cotton, duck cloth - Urgent
• Personal hygiene items - combs, nail polish, lotion, etc 
• Dead tennis balls for dog toys
• Old sweaters and sweatshirts for dog beds
• Old throw pillows for dog beds
• Dark flannel for DFG liners
• Dark printed cotton for DFG shields
• Heavyweight Tulle or produce bags for scrubbies
• Cotton yarn for dishcloths
• Old jeans for dog toys

We look forward to seeing the work we can do this coming year to bless others. Please do not hesitate to call or email with any questions. Or let us know if you would like to be removed from the email list. We look forward to seeing how God will bless our Busy Hands this upcoming year. Please feel free to contact us at busyhands4all@gmail.com with any questions. 

Whether you have a few extra minutes to spare or a lot of extra fabric to share, a little generosity goes a long way when it comes to sewing for charity. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own lives that we forget there are people and animals in the world that are suffering. In a time when money is not freely disposable, we must find creative ways to help our fellow mankind. You can use your talent to help the world become a better place for the less fortunate. I was amazed at how many programs there are out there that appreciate the value of homemade sewn items and how desperately they need our help. Not only are the items practical, but something that is handmade is made with love and the recipient is sure to feel that love.

Awesome things are happening with "Busy Hands"! We will soon be packing the Days for Girls kits going to Fond Blanc Orphanage in Haiti! Aliy is taking them with her on June 25. We have almost all of the components for the Days for Girls kits going to Honduras with Laura this fall!

Last month we donated our first collection of knitted/crocheted hat and sharing hearts to Children's Hospital of St. Louis. We have another donation ready to go! We would like to gather contact names and phone/email addresses of NICU head nurses at our local area hospitals. Such as Mercy, St. Lukes, Progress West, St. Joseph Lake St. Louis, etc. We would like to expand and be able to further distribute our Sharing Hearts and help with additional sewing projects for the babies. If you have contact information, we would greatly appreciate it.

We welcome the "Busy Hand" residents of Meadowlands Assisted Living in O'Fallon! These ladies have been putting together our Mini blankets and Hat sets going to SHARE pregnancy and infant loss centre for distribution to hospitals when needed. Thank you!

We have a new project and patterns. We are sewing Angel gowns and bonnets from donated wedding dresses. The Angel Gown® Program provides comfort for bereaved families with beautiful gowns for final photos and for burial services. It is a privilege for us to provide gowns and bonnets to SHARE pregnancy and infant loss centre for distribution.

We are currently looking for donations of wedding gowns or bridesmaid dresses (in subtle colours) that we can make into Angel Gowns. Not every gown works. We need gowns that have any or all of these attributes: Heavy bridal satin (not see thru), lace or beading that can be removed or cut into small sections to decorate the Angel gowns, cleaned. If you know of someone who would like to donate a dress, please try and send us a photo and before accepting it. We don't want to accept a wedding gown and not be able to use it. Please contact us if you have any questions or need more information.

Thank you to all those who have responded to our request for fabric donations. Welcome to those who have joined our group to sew, crochet or knit. We look forward to meeting you and crafting alongside you.  Please come to a meeting as soon as you can.  If you will be helping from home, please stay in touch with us by phone or email.  We try our best to keep the website up to date.Thank you all for your hard work and support.

Our Calendar:

Sew Day: Thursday, March 15 at 9:30 a.m.  Our agenda is to prepare for the Sew Night and inventory our current stock of Days for Girls components.  

Sew Night: Tuesday, March 20 at 7:00 p.m. we have a plethora of tasks for busy hands - sewing and non-sewing. Please join us! Projects will include: Days for Girls, Sharing Hearts and Mini Blankets. 

At Home Busy Hands: Are you knitting or crocheting Easter NICU hats? We will deliver the hats to Children's Hospital St. Louis next week. Please drop hats off or call for a pick up by Tuesday, March 20.  Our next holiday/season themed hat is 4th of July and summer!

Love Packages Recap: Bill and Tina delivered the Christian literature (donations received at the February Sew Night) to Love Packages on March 7. Love Packages were excited to receive over 50 Bibles and other donations.  It is hard to believe that there are Pastors without a Bible. They currently have containers on the way to South Africa, India, Tanzania and Ghana. They shipped over 2,000 tons last year to people that would have no other way of reading God's Word.  Thank you so much for your generous donations. Busy Hands will make this an annual project. Please save Bibles, books, magazines, devotionals, CDs, DVDs, daily devotionals, puppets, Noah's ark, Bible games, nativity sets and biblical puzzles. If you have connections with churches, please spread the word...Lovepackages.org

Thanks to everyone who made Sharing Hearts for our February Challenge! 

We are getting our first set of Sharing Hearts
ready to deliver to Children's Hospital NICU. 

Fabric hearts are given to the parents of newborn infants admitted to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. The fabric heart is worn against the mom’s or dad’s skin so that the fabric will absorb their scent. The heart is placed with the baby, in the isolette or crib, bonding parent and child with a heartfelt scent of love. 

This is an ongoing Busy Hands 4 All project!  The pattern is on our pattern page. Please keep sewing hearts and bringing them to sew days/nights. Other volunteer opportunities for this project include: donating flannel, prewashing/drying flannel, cutting hearts & printing poems.

Watch this awesome video of a father giving his baby his mother's dirty shirt to comfort him. It is the video that inspired us to find this project.

Days for Girls O'Fallon Team Update

What's new? Drum roll, please!

• Our team purchased an Accuquilt Go Die Cutter and a custom Days for Girls shield die. This system is a fast, accurate, fun, and easy way to cut shields out!
• We are excited to announce our new 'team within a team'. A group of ladies, from New Melle, have a special gift for making Days for Girls drawstring bags. We warmly welcome them to the team!
• We are preparing kits for two mission trips in 2018! Two of our team members will be taking Days for Girls kits and leading feminine hygiene presentations ... 'turning periods into pathways'. Aliy will be taking 50 kits to the Fond Blanc Orphanage in Haiti. Laura will be taking 100 kits to Honduras. We have completed an inventory of kit components and are gearing up to provide these two special ladies with the 150 Days for Girls kits they need. This will bring our kit total to 415! Every washable feminine hygiene kit gives back up to 6 months of living in just 3 years of use. 415 kits equal 74,700 days of education, health, safety and dignity! 
• Welcome, Jan! Our new Days for Girls volunteer who is sewing shields!

What is in 150 kits? 

• 1,200 liners
• 300 shields with 600 plastic Kam snap sets
• 300 pairs of panties
• 300 Ziploc bags
• 150 drawstring bags
• 150 washcloths
• 150 bars of soap
• 150 pictorial instruction sheets

That's a lot of Busy Hands ❤ Sharing Hearts (and fabric & thread)!

How Can You Help? 

• Come to a meeting and help prepare kit components
• Check out Our Wish List
• Share our blog page and our wish list to family, friends, co-workers, etc! 
• Donate to cover airline baggage expenses for kits

With your help, we can reach Every Girl. Everywhere. Period.

P.S. Do you sew at home? Save any type of fabric scraps.  One of our volunteers, Jan, uses the scraps to fill pet beds she sews and donates to local animal shelters.  Waste not, Want not!  Just bag your scraps and bring them to a meeting! 

Our next meeting will be this coming Tuesday, February 20 at 7:00 p.m.  Please RSVP to Busyhands4all@gmail.com if you plan to attend. All are welcome - no sewing skills required! We have several project components to work on - 

1. Remember to bring any Christian literature you would like to donate to Love packages. We will sort and box up for delivery.  We plan to deliver the first week of March (Bring copy paper boxes)
2. Straight stitch sew liners for DFG kits (Bring sewing machine)
3. Make large Stockinette Hats and decorate with ribbons
4. Fold and package Mini-Blankets and Stockinette Hats to deliver to SHARE.
5. Apply snaps to Shields for DFG kits
6. Trace, cut and pin Sharing Hearts to get ready for sewing.  (Bring scissors)

As you can see we have a lot going on so I hope to see you next Tuesday night. Donations would be greatly appreciated to help cover the cost of panties, washcloths, Zip Locs and the baggage costs that Aliy and Laura will incur taking the kits to Haiti and Honduras.  

Blessings and see you Tuesday night!

Tina

We will be getting together this Thursday morning, so join us if you can.We want to brainstorm some of the ideas Colette and I have come up with to expand our group and earn funds to support our charity craftwork. 

Have a Happy Valentine's day 💘and let's see how many "Sharing Hearts" we can make in February to celebrate. Attached is our first pattern to work on a project at home. All of the information should be there, but if you have any questions just email or call.Thanks, everyone!  

Hope to see you Thursday, February 15 at 9:30 a.m. or Tuesday, February 20 night at 7:00 p.m. Remember to bring any Christian literature you would like to donate to Love Packages. See the 'Our Projects' page for a list of requested items.

Blessings to all,

Tina 

Click here for Sharing Hearts Pattern