How A Sewing Circle Is Turning Out ‘Bags Of Hope’ For One Helena Women’s Shelter

This story originally aired on Montana Public Radio on Dec. 24, 2009.

Every Thursday morning in the basement of Our Redeemer’s Lutheran Church in Helena, Mont. you’ll find a group of women sewing and socializing The women have made hundreds of hand made quilts, pillowcases, place mats, dish towels, and bags. Most of the things they make aren’t sold or kept, they’re donated.

“One day we just decided enough of this, we want to be a service group.” About a decade ago Juanita Ryan and a handful of her friends started meeting each week to sew. Ryan her friends make bags full of everyday household items that go to women who are starting over.

Every Thursday – rain or shine – Ryan makes a delivery to The Friendship Center. Holly Kaleczyc is the executive director of the center, which offers safe shelter and support to battered and abused women and children.

“Many victims come to us with absolutely nothing,” explains Kaleczyc. “No birth certificates, no school records, no tax records. People in the community bring the material things we need, they donate cash, and they donate things that make people feel like there is hope.”

Kaleczyc says Helena and the surrounding communities are incredibly generous and donate everything from brand new bedroom sets to movie tickets for women who are trying to get a fresh start.

But Kaleczyc says she started to notice one woman who would show up to donate every single week.

“This wonderful woman kept appearing, with very personalized individual items,” says Kaleczyc. “And I started asking questions, who is she, why does she do this, could anybody really be this nice? And she is all those things.”

Juanita Ryan is a retired nurse and she’s very skilled at working a sewing machine. She’s from Minnesota and used to run an adult daycare. She says community service has always been an important part of her life.

The church lets the woman use a room in their basement, but the group isn’t affiliated with the congregation. They store all their finished items in a multi-purpose room. The cupboards are full of colorful hand sewn items, plus donated toiletries and kitchen items.

“We get so many donations you can’t believe it, we come downstairs here and have piles of fabric,” Ryan says. “In the beginning we all donated fabric and asked for donations. One day one lady came in with a big box of thread for instance, it was incredible, it just comes.”

The Friendship Center’s Kaleczyc says the need is greater than ever right now too. Just last year the shelter provided services to more than 1,000 people. Women seeking safe shelter is up 40 percent from three years ago.

She says the meaningful gifts woman receive from Ryan and her sewing group go a long way in the healing process.

“Mostly they say, ‘oh this is for me?’. They are so overwhelmed that anybody is thinking about them, or their needs, that it takes them a while to absorb it,” Kaleczyc says.

She says someone from the sewing group will call her every week to find out if there are any new women or children staying at the shelter There is usually at least one new person a week – some weeks 4 or 5 new people will show up. Each woman gets a bag filled with necessities, and each child gets a new blanket.

“Like Juanita, she has never said it’s too cold or I’m sorry i was sick, or we can’t afford to buy the materials. She just does it,” says Kalecyzc. “And it’s particularly important because it’s probably the first piece of community support that people moving into shelter see and feel, is this wonderful bag of hope.”

Juanita Ryan says the group often receives little thank you notes from women who are given a bag. She says those notes and thank yous from Kaleczyc and shelter staff encourage them to keep sewing.

“I remember one stormy day we were all here, one day in the winter,” recalls Ryan. “It was really stormy, and one woman spoke up and said ‘do you think if we were just making ornaments we would be here today?’ And we all said, ‘no we wouldn’t’…but because it was for The Friendship Center we were all there, regardless, and that’s how we feel.”

I checked in with Ryan and the sewing group in August 2012 for NPR’s Participation Nation blog. The group still meets each week, but Ryan has handed off her delivery responsibility to a younger member of the sewing circle.