Monday, February 9, 2009

Sewing for Abby Story

Before I share our success from the sewing day at Sew for Fun, I have to share how and why this event took place. Pam Baumli, owner of the store, has experienced first hand people's kindness. Her husband was injured a few years back in an accident as he was lending a helping hand. Friends, neighbors, and others joined in to help the Baumli's with their farming operation as Larry was unable to. Since then, they have given back every chance they can. When Pam opened the sewing store, she decided to set up monthly charity sews for different organizations and events to help out. In January, they sewed bags for Briley Heart Cart (in memory of Briley Hull). In December, they altered clothing for injured soldiers. Pam came to us and asked what could be done to help out the Foundation. We remembered a cute little handmade teddy bear that was donated last summer and thought if we could make some of these, that would be wonderful. Pam found the pattern, which included bears, bunnies, and kitties, and one of her fabric suppliers agreed to donate some flannel fabric. We were thrilled by these donations and the sewing day was set. We were then contacted by the Maryville Treatment Center, wanting to help. Sue Posten arranged for the inmates to cut the patterns out from the donated fabric. They were able to cut 29 bears/bunnies/kitties from the fabric during their allotted project time. This helped out tremendously since we were able to have some critters ready to embroider and sew.


I wanted to take today to thank these inmates for their work in helping the Foundation on this sewing project. Two inmates in particular have been touched by the story of the Foundation and made monetary donations. The amount of their donations might seem small for us on the outside of prison, but they were HUGE amounts for someone confined. For them to give up anything and give it to us of all places tugged at my heart. What small amounts of money they earn while in prison is spent on their basic needs (soap, toothpaste, etc), so to give this away, WOW. These men must have big hearts and are on their way to reform.

Check in tomorrow for the results of the sew.

No comments:

Post a Comment