Olde Towne Stitchers 2018 Activities

Each year, the Olde Towne Stitchers undertake a project supporting a specific need in our Williamsburg community. Under the direction and leadership of Rose Farace, the community service coordinator for the group, 500 bed caddies were sewn and delivered for patients in the Intensive Care Unit at Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center in 2016. These bed caddies can hold eyeglasses, cell phones, or other small items the patient would like to have handy. In the fall of 2017, the hospital requested more bed caddies, and an additional 107 were delivered.

In addition to the bed caddies, a new community service project was started in 2017. 80 walker bags and 30 wheelchair bags were sewn and delivered to the Williamsburg, VA, Foundation for Rehabilitation Equipment and Endowment (F.R.E.E.), a non-profit organization that repairs gently used mobility related rehabilitative equipment and gifts the equipment to adults in need of it. Rose Farace met with representatives of the organization to determine the requirements for these bags, and then designed a customized pattern that ensures proper fit on the walker/wheelchair. Members cut and sewed these bags during the year, delivering a total of 110 items. Each walker or wheelchair dispensed from F.R.E.E. included one of these easily attached bags.

This project will continue to be the main community service project for 2018. The original pattern was recently revised and simplified by Alice Kopinitz and Susan Baer. The pattern can be accessed on the Olde Towne Stitchers website. Workshops to cut/sew the bags have been planned throughout the year to aid in the group effort to produce these bags. The supplies needed for a bag can be organized in “kits” during these workshops, to be sewn either at the workshop, or taken home and sewn.

Please refer to the Olde Towne Stitchers website at loubwill2.wixsite.com/oldetownestitchers for any of the above patterns. Additional information can be found on Pinterest (search “people” for Olde Towne Stitchers. Pins of the projects can be found on the Community Service Board).