Stitchers in Community Piece Makers reached their goal of sewing 100 colorful bags. And now the group is ready for the next phase of the project — filling the bags with essentials that will be distributed to homeless people in Ramona.
Volunteers, many connected to Ramona’s churches and the Serve Ramona interfaith organization, have already begun to collect those items as part of the third annual Homeless Care Kit Drive that will culminate with distributions to the homeless in December.
Each bag is unique. Made with a durable cotton fabric, some of the designs feature musical notes, holiday prints, floral designs, nature scenes and antique automobiles. But they all resemble miniature quilts and have a small heart attached that says, “handmade with love.”
Ramona resident Carol Spencer, who organized the group, said she was told roughly 80 percent of the homeless individuals in Ramona are men and 20 percent are women, so she divided the themes of the bags accordingly.
“If one person feels the love from the community that’s the goal,” said Spencer, a longtime seamstress who started teaching quilting in the 1980s. “Sharing my passion, that gives me great joy.”
One hundred colorfully quilted bags will be filled with essentials and distributed to homeless people in Ramona in December.
(Julie Gallant)
Spencer, who retired from fundraising for the University of California and California State University systems four years ago, had enough time on her hands to return to teaching the craft and to recruit others for the Community Piece Makers project. Her partners are Joanne Bowden and Dianna Webb.
Initially, 15 people signed up to make the bags, Spencer said. They showed up in February for one Thursday night and the following Friday morning class to learn basic quilt piecing and color theory at Ramona United Methodist Church. But then COVID-19 intervened and the sewing party lost its steam.
Bowden and Webb persevered as Spencer’s students and learned skills such as how to press, cut and color coordinate the fabrics that are leftover scraps from Spencer’s quilts.
Bowden had already been learning the art of sewing from Spencer. Upon arriving at the first Community Piece Makers class, she was surprised to see the sewing machine her husband had bought her for Christmas in 1963 that was surreptitiously dug out of their closet at home.
Unbeknownst to Bowden, her husband had carried the sewing machine outside and put it in Spencer’s car trunk. The next week Bowden brought it to her class, and because they couldn’t find the manual for the machine, they printed a new one off the computer.
Webb is an experienced seamstress who sewed her own clothes as a teenager and then sewed her daughter’s clothes as a mother. When she saw an article in the Ramona Sentinel about the new Community Piece Makers group forming early this year, she was inspired to learn how to quilt.
“I always wanted to learn to quilt,” Webb said. “I hadn’t sewn in 20 years, but I had friends who quilted. I thought this is a perfect way to learn to quilt and help the community at the same time.”
Now that the bags have been crafted, the interfaith organization Serve Ramona is working to gather enough toiletries and other essentials to fill the bags to help the homeless in Ramona. This is the third year Serve Ramona has conducted its Homeless Care Kit Drive. Their goal is to collect donated socks and gloves, soaps and shampoos, first-aid kids and notebooks, as well as hand sanitizer, masks, facial tissue and snacks.
An Amazon Registry Link has been set up to organize the donations online at https://www.amazon.com/wedding/serve-ramona-homeless-care-kits-ramona-november-2020/registry/YNWGD3073HNV.
The deadline for ordering through the registry is Thursday, Oct. 15. Donations made through Amazon will be shipped directly to the coordinator, Holly White, a Serve Ramona member and Ramona resident. White said the registry was set up to streamline the donation process and to minimize contact between people during the coronavirus pandemic.
“People are becoming more aware and we’re getting a lot more community involvement,” White said. “I anticipate as this becomes something we can count on in the community then more people will get involved. We hope to have it continue on as long as we have homeless people in Ramona.”
A homeless man, right, accepts essentials inside a goodie bag provided through a past Homeless Care Kit Drive.
(Courtesy photo)
Also needed for the bags, but not on the registry, are small-denomination gift cards to local fast-food restaurants. Other requested items include blankets and portable battery packs for charging cell phones. Specialty items needed include crocheted and knitted caps.
White said Serve Ramona members and other volunteers will fill the bags starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, in the parking lot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 527 Ninth St.
“People can join in,” said White, noting that in the past two years they filled bags that had been stitched out of bed sheets. “We have 100 bags to fill so the more people who get involved the faster we can get it done.”
During December, the filled bags will be distributed under the guidance of Hope Christian Fellowship of Ramona and Pastor Sharon Day. The church, at 850 Main St., will coordinate visits to homeless people living near the Santa Maria Creek and also to participants receiving free meals in the community.
White said 100 bags should be sufficient to serve Ramona’s homeless, so the Homeless Care Kit Drive is not looking to expand. But the organizers are always open to making improvements.
“It’s a learning curve,” White said. “We’ll see what works and modify it for the next year. People are so good-hearted, it’s just that not everybody knows about it.”
Other churches involved in the project are First Congregational Church of Ramona, Christ the King Church and Ramona United Methodist Church.
For more information, call Serve Ramona at 1-408-684-1225. For more information about Community Piece Makers, contact Spencer at cm.spencer@cox.net.
"filled" - Google News
September 24, 2020 at 01:26AM
https://ift.tt/32WrIFN
Quilters hand off their bags to be filled with essentials for Homeless Care Kit Drive - Ramona Sentinel
"filled" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2ynNS75
https://ift.tt/3feNbO7
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Quilters hand off their bags to be filled with essentials for Homeless Care Kit Drive - Ramona Sentinel"
Post a Comment