Stitch is a social community for people over 50 to form meaningful connections and find companionship through in-person and virtual events. The name “Stitch” means we often get mistaken for a sewing club! However Stitch groups, events and activities are based around all the things members find fun, from dining out, to boardgames, to volunteering, to wine tasting, to dancing – as well as the occasional bit of stitching!
Debbie Hartzell is a Stitch member from Alpharetta, Georgia. She decided to put together a Stitch community event to help sew clothing for children in Kenya. She shares her story of how we can work together to make a real difference.
First idea sparks
About nine months ago, I made an interesting new acquaintance that had an important job designing sustainable buildings. While he loved the area, the job itself involved spreadsheets and numbers, not actual buildings. He said he was looking for a way to do some work where he saw his finished product and could put his hands on it.
He then explained that he had happened on the Roswell Firelabs, a makerspace in Roswell, Georgia. This non-profit, run entirely by volunteers, is housed in the old Roswell fire station and is a collection of every type of equipment you might need to make an idea a reality.
The renovated fire station contains table saws and routers, and every tool needed for fine woodworking. It also has welding equipment, 3D printers, a state-of-the-art CNC plasma cutter, laser engraving tools, and my personal favorite, sewing machines and accessories.
My new friend explained he was making a special table for his wife for Christmas.
I was immediately intrigued and signed up for a tour of the Firelabs the next day.
As I toured the workshop, the sewing room sparked something inside. I had used many of the tools they had available, but the sewing area, for some reason, started me thinking about a future project.
6 months later
Fast forward six months, and I was fully involved in learning everything I could about sewing. I was progressing with my YouTube university training and was about at the intermediate level. I had sewn a lot for myself in the last 6 months and was now looking for a way to share my craft with the community.
About this same time, I received an email from an old friend, asking me to join her Facebook network. She told me she was retired and working with a non-profit called Hearth to Hearth Ministries, a school and orphanage in Kenya.
My friend, Julie, included some pictures of the children at the orphanage. It would be hard to find a more enthusiastic and cheerful bunch. Julie explained some of the challenges these kids had faced and how her organization and volunteers were helping them with the things they needed to grow up.
I got an idea that I would like to make some clothes for the children at this school. I wasn’t sure how I could pull that off, but I started putting together a plan.
Clothes that bring joy to children
I contacted Julie and asked if the girls at her organization would like some dresses. I showed her an example of one. I thought she might be polite and tell me this sounded nice. I expected her to be noncommittal. She responded immediately and told me this sounded like a great idea. She could use the dresses and would love to have them. She even gave a detailed list of what sizes were needed. We would be making dresses for girls 5 to 11 years old.
I put together a prototype dress. This is a dress made of a simple girl’s t-shirt and a gathered skirt. It can be put together in an hour. I gathered all sorts of material I had in my fabric stash. I purchased these girls’ t-shirts in as many colors as they had. I decided I wanted to try to make a unique dress for each girl.
I turned to another non-profit, Scraplanta. This is an organization that runs a craft thrift store where people donate their unused craft and sewing materials, and Scraplanta sells these in a fill-a-bag system. This keeps these materials from being wasted and allows the buyers to purchase lots of materials for very little money. It was perfect for my project.
Support from Stitch
I contacted my friends in the Stitch community, and found some people in the group who could sew and were happy to volunteer.
I looked for a place to hold a sewing event. The Roswell Firelabs seemed perfect, and they agreed to let us use their equipment and space.
My friend Laila from the Stitch community donated some money. I purchased the rest of what I needed for the project and scheduled a sew-a-thon where all the helpers could get together to create the dresses. I found some additional people who liked to sew, loaded up my car with notions, and got ready for the first meeting.
Despite my planning and all the help I was getting, I had no idea whether the idea would actually work. Machine failure, weather catastrophes, participant dropout, I imagined it all. I was incredibly nervous walking in the door.
A Sew-a-thon Success!
Everything went like clockwork.
My sewing volunteer friends rallied and dug up all their best training from 4H and their early home economics classes. The machines did not let us down, and the weather was perfect.
We started sewing, sharing great stories and laughs, and 3 hours later we had 15 dresses. The goal of enough dresses for the school by Christmas suddenly seemed very doable.
Because the project came together so smoothly, I purchased some materials for the older girls at the school. We now plan to make an additional 30 dresses.
This project showed me how many people devote big portions of their time to supporting different important causes.
We could not have accomplished this project without goodwill, volunteers, and the support of so many non-profits. Thank you.
Debbie’s story shows how building a community and coming along to events not only helps the people in your local area, it can also help people all around the world.
Check out Stitch to find good people doing fun activities in your area and virtually all over the globe.




