February 25, 2005

Local girl scouts ‘Sew For Love’

For many, Valentine’s weekend conjures up images of chocolate, roses and romantic cards. To the volunteers who participate in “Sew For Love,” it holds a different meaning in their hearts.

A hard-working crew of South Bay Girl Scouts, their moms and other community members created 476 items in a 12-hour span during Sew For Love.

“Sew For Love” is a community service event that has taken place on Valentine’s weekend for the last five years. For the past three years, it has been held at “Rainbow’s End,” a Girl Scout leased property off of Penetencia Creek Road with a very fitting name.

Sew For Love is a labor of love by Michelle Zeiler, a South San Jose Girl Scout leader who runs the “Sew EZ” program for Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County. Sew EZ introduces Girl Scouts of all ages to the fun and enjoyment of sewing.

Girls Scouts and members of the community come together for a Sew For Love weekend that includes both fun and hard work. In its five years, participants have created and donated more than 2,200 items. This year they made 476 items—from quilts to pet beds—in under 12 hours.

Sewing machines, fabric, batting and notions have been donated from local businesses in the Bay Area and as far away as Chicago and North Carolina. Girl Scout Service Unit 2 in the Evergreen Area donated $100, which helped purchase fabric and batting for children’s quilts.

Set up for the program starts Friday afternoon even though volunteers don’t arrive until Saturday morning. Friday night set up doesn’t end until everything is organized and in its proper station. That could mean 1:30 a.m. or even 2:30 a.m.

Volunteers arrive Saturday morning, ready to go. The best part of the program is that you don’t have to know how to sew to help. There are quilts to be laid out and pinned, batting to be shredded for stuffing pillows, material for pet beds to be matched up and cut, fabric pieces to be ironed or ribbon to be threaded through tote bags.

Girls Scouts and members of the community come together for a Sew For Love weekend that includes both fun and hard work.

By mid-afternoon, the house is chaos with girls, adults and projects in full swing. The hard-working volunteers were delighted when the raffle included a donation of a brand new sewing machine this year.

The program is set up to be on a “drop-in” schedule, with people coming and staying for whatever their schedule allows, be it a couple of hours or an entire afternoon. By late Saturday afternoon the volunteers depart, and clean up and organizing for the Sunday crew begins. By late morning Sunday, the chaos has returned to Rainbow’s End.

The fruits of Sew For Love labor have included fleece hats for the oncology ward and quilts to the premature baby ward at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, quilts and pillows as well as fleece hats for the Emergency Housing Consortium, teddy bears for the San Jose Police Department, pillows for San Jose Hospital and Kaiser Santa Teresa Cardiac Recovery, cat and dog pet beds for Humane Society Silicon Valley, quilts and tote bags for local domestic abuse shelters and pillows and quilts for Sunday’s Friends.

Once the volunteers have departed Sunday afternoon, the clean up efforts—a massive undertaking of its own—begins.

There are item counts to be confirmed, rooms to be cleaned up and put back in order, the kitchen and bathrooms to be cleaned and organized and hundreds of items to be bagged and marked for their final destinations.

Oh, and those roses, chocolates and romantic cards? Those were hand- delivered by special husbands who understand that “from the heart” comes in many different forms.