Club Notes - December 18, 2019

Our last meeting of the year was a busy, informative, and joyful one.   Mic Pickard came to my house before the meeting to help me get all the donated items to El Santiago.  We filled both her van and mine, and only brought about half of the items in.  I had a number of bags of clothing donations that I only received on Tuesday and hadn't had time to go through.  Everyone pitched in to sort and count the items so we could report the value as closely as possible.  This is necessary both for the receiving charity to maintain their status and for us to report.  As many of you know, I report everything I donate to the Quilting Guild of the Villages via the Allamanda chapter.  I also encourage any members who belong to other quilt chapters to report their contributions through their own chapters and let me know so items don't get reported twice.

I just want to thank those who contributed to the Wildwood Soup Kitchen charity request.  Between Sewing 'N More, Allamanda, Khaki, and the Quilting B's, we were able to give them 31 quilts, 25 blankets, 69 pillowcases, about $1,800 worth of used clothing and toys, and a lot of miscellaneous items totaling a value of about $12,850.

I thought you'd like to know a little about where your contributions went.

The woman who is coordinating the efforts to help these people, Barbara McManus, came to the Sewing N More club yesterday to pick up the donated items and talk to us about the situation.  The people living in the Econo Lodge are not unemployed, They all have low paying jobs in local stores or fast food places.  Many of these are part time jobs that don't include benefits.  They live from paycheck to paycheck, and when extra expenses come up, they may not be able to pay the $50 a day to stay in the hotel.  When that happens, they have to move out and sleep in the woods until they can afford a room again.  The rooms only have the typical microwave and small refrigerator, so the ability to keep any food is limited. That's where the soup kitchen comes in.

Another fact I did not know before - Sumter County does not have any homeless shelters.  I double checked this and the nearest ones are in Lake or Marion counties, and they seem to deal only with people who have some specific issue like substance abuse, not poor, hard-working people.

Barbara is the Home Delivery, Driver Coordinator.  This year she started a go fund me campaign and raised enough money to pay the rent on 24 rooms at the hotel for 2 weeks. That will cover Christmas and New Year's weeks for these poor families, so they can use their meager income for some other needs. After that, they are on their own again.

So, thanks again, from the bottom of my heart.  If you want to do more, the link to the organization's web page is above.

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In regular club news, every year I give a little gift to the person or persons who attended the most meetings throughout the year.  This year there was a 4-way tie.  I gave Pat Pipa and Bev Minnerly their gifts (embroidered bookmarks) last week Mic Pickard got hers this week (a club name badge).  The 4th person is away and will get hers when she returns.

Show and Tell:

 Mic Pickard made a cute little apron and matching kitchen towels for a friend's little daughter.  She also made 2 lovely Christmas stockings.

Deb Chapman showed an ornament she made.

Bev Minnerly finished the tote she was making for her neighbor.

Pat Pipa made totes, zipper bags and backpacks for our charity

Eileen DeSanto made pillowcases for our charity and got a little creative with fabric that wasn't quite big enough.

Kiki Mitracos made 2 child's bibs, Pillowcases, potholders, a pillow cover and table toppers.

I showed 3 quilts.  The first was one Lu Karatzas gave me last week and I backed and quilted.

The second was on Diane Placek gave me on Sunday.  She made this one from fabric she took from our donation stash, and I quilted it.

The third one I made by building around some of our orphan blocks.






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We now have 3 weeks off for the holidays.  Our next meeting will be on January 15th and it will be in our winter room, still in El Santiago, but in the room next door, the Beach Club room.  Our project will be Hospice Veterans' quilts. I will send out reminders.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful, Happy New Year.