Thanks to all who braved the parade and come to our last Open House of the year. Here is a recap of what we discussed.

Please send me your positive, motivational or inspirational messages for the OCJ Kids group homes, these will be added to The Sunshine Jar. This jar is for the workers at various group homes to give them a boost when facing the daily, minute-by-minute challenges of a group home.

Our next distribution will be begin on July 23 at Grand Canyon University and this year we will adding foster kids on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 5/6-8/9. Our goal is that this will allow a group of about 1,000 very special kids to receive items from us.

The Albertson’s program for cash donations is no longer active and has not been transferred to Safeway. Here are the instructions to attach your Fry’s card to their cash donation program to benefit Back to School Clothing Drive. Remember this is FREE money donated to us.

You need to establish an account with Fry’s and link your shopping card. Since I already had this done in order to save digital coupons to my card, I am not sure how to direct you but I am sure if you sign on the Fry’s website or app you will see instructions to create an account.

Using the menu, select 1-2-3 REWARDS Visa Card (you will not be applying for the credit card!), scroll down to the bottom and select Community, then select Fry’s Community Rewards. Scroll to the bottom and select Enroll Now. This will also give you an opportunity to create your VIP online account-you will need your card number and think of a password.

Sign in with your password

Enter BAC, select Search

Back to School Clothing Drive with our address appears at the top of my search, if not scroll down to locate the charity

Click on the dot and select Enroll at the bottom

FREE money, YES!

Many thanks to all who helped to decorate the Christmas tree that will be donated to Family Promise in honor of Jerry Wissink of BHHS Legacy. Jerry and representatives from Family Promise will be at the BTSCD office this Thursday at 1:00 for the tree exchange. Please come by and help us celebrate! It is also our Thursday Terrors sew day starting at 9:30, so please come to sew or craft with us. Lynne Warren was the big winner of the sewing table. Many thanks to Julie Zimmerman for all the gifts she had for the ornaments. Thanks also to Joanne Sexton for the gift she brought in for an additional winner.

Mike Adams (Cindy’s husband) will be maintaining the Stitches of Love portion of the BTSCD website. If you have ideas for changes or challenges obtaining information, please let me know so we can improve the site.

Please remember that all sewing events for December have been cancelled, including sew day at 35th Ave Sew and Vac. Please do not drop off completed items at 35th Ave Sew and Vac. The sewing event at the Beatitudes Campus will still be held on December 13 as this is their event.

Our Annual Appreciation Luncheon from BHHS Legacy will be held January 13 (no Open House in January) at 11:00 at Beatitudes Life Center (attached to Buckwald’s Arizona Grille) at 1610 W. Glendale. The menu has not yet been determined so details and map will follow in December/January. Since we do not have any December events, please email me if you would like to attend.

We received a very generous donation of lace, so if you need any embellishments we have it! You can attach lace to t-shirts, purses or very cute hair accessories created by Gloria Baldwin.

If you make any donation of yarn flowers, please make sure to leave long tails so the flower can easily be attached.

Cindy showed us how to make easy pompoms for hats, purses, hair accessories or whatever you desire. She likes the Hobby Lobby pompom maker the best but also

showed us how to use card board to wrap the yarn. I also showed a great (at least I think so) knitted hat that Cindy coached me in making. Remember our Yarn it Forward event is the Monday after Open House from 9:30 to 2:00. Please stop by if you need help for knitting, crocheting or using the knitting loom or just sit and chat while playing with yarn. Unfortunately she will be out of town for the January 15 event, but we will still meet.

Don’t forget we have Stitches of Love t-shirts for sale for $20 with a variety of sizes/colors. Hopefully you will find a t-shirt your size and color as we will not be ordering anymore. We also will have a limited amount (6) of aprons available to $25. If you want one of these please email me and I will set one aside for you. Remember the proceeds of the t-shirt/apron sales go directly to Stitches of Love.

Our next Open House will be February 10 when Will’s sharpening will be here to sharpen your scissors, tools or knives. Our Sew it Now will be to address any questions, ideas or challenges regarding our “That was a t-shirt” workshop that we held today. I am attaching our guidelines for creating/adapting our t-shirts. If you have any questions, please contact me.

In addition to the ‘That was a t-shirt handout’, I am also attaching the event calendar for January-March 2018.

Many thanks to all of you for all that you do. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Sandy