“It’s just such a happy room,” Hope Center Indy board member Margo Ward said of the sewing room at the center.
Tom Russo | Daily Reporter
Margo Ward doesn’t even sew.
But somehow, when she saw a catchall room with plentiful natural light during a tour at Hope Center Indy, she felt it would be perfect as a sewing room. That’s God’s sense of humor, she said.
She brought up the sewing room idea again. And again.
Finally, she said, she was told she could work on establishing one but would have to do so without a budget.
So Ward — a board member at the ministry that helps women exiting trafficking, addiction or abuse — gathered some people from her church to clean, scrape wallpaper and repaint the room. Someone donated new flooring. Ward also put out a call on the Nextdoor app for volunteers, machines and fabric. All three showed up; in two weeks, the program had 30 machines and “so much fabric we didn’t know what to do with it,” Ward said.
“It’s amazing how generous people are,” she said. “People want to be involved; they just don’t know how.”
Patty Hons, a retired home economics teacher and school counselor, saw the notice and stepped forward. Ward told her she was an answer to prayer, a prayer prayed for someone who not only knew how to sew, but also knew how to teach people to sew.
Now, interested Hope Center residents can join a Monday morning class in which they start by making a simple stuffed animal and then branch out to projects that interest them, perhaps a hobo bag or a quilt or some clothing. Residents who complete the five phases of Hope Center programming and continue to be interested in sewing can leave with a sewing machine when they graduate. So far, three graduates have received a machine, thread and supplies.
The colorful fabric donations, neatly folded, fill bookshelves in the bright upstairs sewing room. They also fill shelves in a couple of adjoining rooms. So many donations came, Ward said, that Sew Hopeful has shared fabric and machines with four church ministries who make blankets for others or do similar work.
Most students in the class are new to sewing, Hons said, or if they’ve sewed it’s been a while, such as for a class in school.
But in the process of learning how — such as learning to make stitches along a curve, or to place the fabric pieces’ right sides together when making a seam — women in the class develop skills and take pride in a finished project.
“It really is amazing what a program like this can do for a resident,” said Sara Feasel, director of development at the center, housed in the former Marion County Home at 11850 Brookville Road, just west of the Marion-Hancock county line. “It’s amazing to see their confidence that they gain.”
“It’s therapy at the same time,” Hons said. “You’re creating, but at the same time you’re quiet in your head.”
Hons said people don’t always think about the ways to make a living from sewing, yet often she hears people looking for someone who does alterations or who can make curtains to match a couch, for example.
“There’s so many things you can do with just a basic sewing skill. They can find a livelihood from it if they choose to,” she said.
Even if they don’t, there are other rewards from what they’re learning.
“I get so often, ‘I didn’t know I could do this,’” Hons said. “They’re gaining confidence and some pride in themselves that they’ve never felt before.”
