Thank you to all who attended Open House, we had 2 full racks of clothing turned in. Great Job! I am always asked “What do we need”? My reply—“Everything”! With the addition of about 1,200 foster and shelter kids to shop from 5:00-8:00 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, we need more items. While accessories are wonderful and the kids love them, what they really need is clothes. You don’t know how to sew? Ask us and if you cannot attend our Sewing Days on the 1stand 3rd Thursday sewing days at the BTSCD office or the 4th Sunday at 35th Ave Sew and Vac we can try and arrange a time to show you some very simple things.
We were very sad to announce the passing of Joyce Williams. Joyce had been part of our group for 40+ years and she will be missed. Services will be on February 22 at 1:00 at Sunwest Funeral, 12525 Grand Ave, El Mirage. I have confirmed this time with the funeral home and they also told me the family did not state if they preferred donations to her favorite charities in lieu of flowers. In addition to Stitches of Love, she also supported The Arizona Humane Society. If you choose to donate to BTSCD, please note in honor of Joyce William on your check or go to the BTSCD website and there is a place to make a donation/comment.
Our appreciation luncheon hosted by BHHS Legacy held at the Beatitudes Life Center was awesome! The food was excellent and we are very grateful to Jerry for the lunch and the $30,000 grant. We have already booked the luncheon for next year at the Beatitudes. We presented our new Stitches of Love plaque. We honored our previous leaders with Stitches of Love, Pat Coultrap and Susan Kirsch. We also honored Joyce Williams, Juereta Smith, Jane Cox, Georgia Romig and Jo Doyle for their years of service. Each year we will be honoring additional volunteers. If you have someone you would like us to honor, please let me know so we can choose 5 to add to our plaque at our next luncheon.
Vincent reported on the BTSCD Gala held at the Phoenix Art Museum. The masquerade ball was very successful, introducing new fans to our charity. Approximately $70,000 was raised with an additional $50,000-$70,000 matched by BHHS Legacy. We are ‘sew’ appreciative to Jerry for purchasing a table and donating it to volunteers from Stitches of Love to attend. A thank you card for Jerry was passed around and Mary placed it in his mail box. The 2019 Gala has already been booked at the Phoenix Art Museum for next January.
The Greater Federation of Women’s Club purchased, created and donated 101 pillowcases. Thank you so much Debbie Grieder for leading this event.
Have you visited our website? If not, please take a look and send me a comment, the link is right on the page. Mike Adams (Cindy’s husband) has done an awesome job making our section current and easier to navigate. Can’t find a pattern, send me a comment and we will try and find it. Please remember we cannot put any “free” patterns on our site. We can however have them in our instruction cabinet at the BTSCD office.
Please do not put any notions in the drawers. I have placed a shoebox on the pattern cabinet for any notions you are donating. We will need to review to see if these donations are needed. Also place any fabric donations in this area also. We will be cleaning and straightening the notion drawers at our next work day on March 15.
We did an awesome job creating 800 boys dress shirts last year. We have about 8-10 volunteers creating these shirts. If anyone is interested in having another dress shirt class, please let me know and we can schedule a class. We also placed the patterns, buttons and size tags on the same shelf as the boy’s shirt fabric so you have easier access.
T-shirt review—we saw some great ideas for t-shirts. I need to place another order for t-shirts, so do you have a particular size/color you need? If so, please let me know and I will include it in the order. I would like to place this order by March 1 so we can have them by March Open House. If there are any supplies you need, please let me know and we will do our best to order them for you.
Thanks to Cindy for hosting our bookmark workshop. In March, Gloria Baldwin will show us how to turn all our lace into hair accessories. Please plan to stay and learn her techniques.
Attached at the bottom of this email is the list of calendar events for January-March. Please review the calendar and see what events you can attend.
We need volunteers for our pillowcase event at 35th Ave Sew and Vac on Saturday, March 17. They will be donating fabric for 100 pillowcases so we definitely want to support this event. Please email me for the shift and task you would like to help with. If you volunteer for all day, lunch will be provided. We need volunteers for the following:
9-11:30
1 to sew with customers
2 trim/iron the pillowcases
1 talk with customers about Stitches of Love
11-1:30
3 to sew with customers
1-3:30
3 to sew with customers