Our Accomplishments and it is is only April!

I'm sitting here running over all of the projects we have accomplished already this year, which is amazing, and thinking about where we go next.

For example -

• Siteman Cancer in St. Peters is set with port pillows and eye masks for a while. I'll check with them next month.
• Progress West is set with blankets and comfort pillows and I'll deliver the 80+ lbs of Rice Heating packs as soon as I can get Bill to go with me and carry them.
• Sweet Babies has two more boxes almost ready for delivery. Marjie is making beautiful blankets from Linda's minky donations.  The moms are going to feel so special!
• Many have made bibs that are so cute and embellished.  100's of tags were made April 16 night for the bags.
• Days 4 Girls is being watched over by Laura and Aliena.  We will be helping supply Sharon with 60 kits in May.
• Teeny Tears blankets are being made by Janet to equal out our inventory of small and large. 

It seems as soon as the fabric is used, more appears.  Thank you, Cheryl! We now have 100's of yards of home décor fabric. So, it would be great to start cutting this fabric up for totes, school chair bags, and walker/wheelchair bags. Charity Sharity has an immediate need for tote bags and will start collecting chair bags for the coming school year.  The walker/wheelchair bags will easily find a home I'm sure.  

We will continue working on Sweet Babies delivery.  Everyone can help with this by shopping garage sales for gently used clothing and receiving blankets, bibs, small baby blankets  (especially Boy items).  They will take any season, just make sure they are not stained up.  No toys. Board books are needed also.  Sweet  Babies needs practical items for babies newborn to 1 year.  They will take larger size clothing which is given to siblings of the newborns who may be in need. We can deliver it to you or I can give you the information. 

I am in the process of getting in touch with a group in Ellisville, MO called Helping Hearts Grow, that collects fabric shopping bags, backpacks, cosmetic bags, hotel soaps, shampoos, etc for distribution to the homeless here. If you have these items, you can start collecting them and hold for more information.

Summer is a busy time for everyone but if you would like to have a project to work on at home, please let me know. I can supply fabric and patterns for cutting or cutting and sewing at your own pace. 

We plan on continuing to meet, but will probably have to cancel occasionally so just watch your email for updates.  If you find a need that we can help fill, please let me know the details. 

Thank you all for your time and talent.  Know that the little things we do through our Lords urging are a blessing to those who receive them.  

In God's service,

Tina 

Below is a message of thanks.

I thought you would all like to hear how what we do is a blessing.  Some of the chair bags we made went to the kids mentioned in this email. 

Thank you all again for your help, prayers and support. 

Tina

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Janice Palesch 

To: Gary Splater 

Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019, 8:08:34 AM CDT

Subject: Froebel and Walbridge Schools

Dearest Carole and Sewists,

I want to tell you how tremendously grateful Froebel School was yesterday to receive the extra-small chair bags and the totes for their teachers.  The littlest kids (pre-K and Kindergartners) in that school now have chair bags, just like the rest of the classes received from your magical and prolific sewists.  As a result, they no longer feel less worthy and less valued than the other kids in the school.  Their books, pencils, and papers won't have to be strewn all over the floor any more.  Disorder in belongings can sometimes engender disorder in behavior and in the classroom, which at times prevents students from learning.  In a very real sense, you and your sewists have helped create an orderly environment in which the students have a better chance of learning, as well as a better chance of discovering the benefit of order, something that many of them do not learn at home.  After delivering the things you and your sewists make, I often wonder how many people's lives will be changed in a multitude of ways, simply because of your generosity and your caring spirit.  The smallest item, given with love, can affect a life in profound and lasting ways.  Therefore, all of you should take pride in the work you do for so many.  The work of your hands might actually be helping to shape lives and destinies.  I know that it has changed lives and given a sense of hope to many, especially for immigrants and refugees, who have utterly nothing.  They suddenly realize that they are welcome in the land they have chosen to be their new home, just as my mother and grandparents did in 1927.  (I send to you a very special "thank you" for allowing me to serve those immigrant communities with your dedicated work.  I wish that such groups had been in existence at the time my mother and grandparents emigrated from Germany.  Their lives would have been made so much easier, and their struggles could have been alleviated.)  

Froebel School will give the totes you made for their teachers on Teacher Appreciation Day.  I want you to know that the school's Activities Director was extremely grateful that you could fill her request for those bags.  The teachers there have nothing in which to carry their teacher's manuals, other books, and papers back and forth between home and school.  Those teachers are going to be very surprised to receive your beautiful tote bags.  That St. Louis school receives so very little, and the teachers do not have the resources they need in order to educate the children properly or even to execute their own duties effectively.  They regularly pay for school supplies and other classroom needs out of their own money.  Their own money can be stretched only so far, and the last thing on their mind is buying anything for themselves, like a tote bag.  The tote bags which you made will at least allow them to carry their work, their students' work, and their books in a manageable receptacle.  You will be making their job easier, and I know that they will appreciate it when they receive those bags.

As terribly poor as Froebel School is, Walbridge School is even worse.  It is hard to paint a picture of that school or that neighborhood because it is so economically depressed.  The school is an old but stately building in far North St. Louis City, situated amid an area that somewhat resembles a war zone.  It is much like the area in which Froebel exists, but it is in even deeper poverty, surrounded by boarded-up buildings, homes without windows, doors, and sometimes without roofs and walls. (And, yes, people are actually living in those buildings.)  I saw no grocery stores anywhere, only one check-cashing store after another, empty lots with high grass and dirty brush, and blocks and blocks of vacant, completely uninhabitable buildings.  The area looks as if it has been "picked clean" of anything of value. Even a street sign off of North Kingshighway had been stolen.  The neighborhood is very dangerous, and I will admit to a lot of trepidation as I drove through it - and I especially when I  had to get out of my car to seek directions because street signs I needed to guide me to the school had been stolen.  You can imagine the extent of need in that school, in that entire area.  You made 250 chair bags for Walbridge, enough for all of the children in that school.  The Principal was utterly ecstatic to receive them and the calculators, which you also provided.  I want you to know that the tote bags, the wool scarves, and the pencil bags, which you are also making for that school, are going to provide much-needed items for a deeply, deeply distressed school and for lives at a level of poverty that is almost impossible to imagine.  I honestly cannot conceptualize the lives of the children - or any others - who live there.  Nor can I comprehend how the school staff can accomplish much of anything there.   They have so little to work with.  THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART for the things you have already made and the things that you are still making for that school.  I do believe that what you do for others in this life carries blessings, not only to the receivers, but also to the givers.  All of you deserve showers of blessings just for what you have provided to Froebel and Walbridge Schools, alone.

May you all enjoy the most wonderful week for your generosity and loving kindness.  I am tremendously proud and honored to be affiliated with angels of mercy like you.

Janice