by Joanne Larsen, Coordinator

Much gratitude to the Sisters of St. Francis Community Center at Assisi Heights in Rochester for the space we occupied for storage and work meetings. Due to changes planned for the infrastructure of the Assisi Heights building, it was necessary to move to Pax Christi Catholic Church, 4135 18th Avenue NW, Rochester, MN for our work meetings. We appreciate both organizations for providing for our needs so that we might be of service to the little ones and their families. We will miss our visits at Assisi but are happy to be at Pax Christi.

With this change, we are having only our work meetings on the fourth Saturday of each month (except December) at Pax Christi. We are finding it a fine facility.

It has become necessary to have our monthly evening drop off and pick up meeting in the homes on the second Thursday of each month. Mary Rossman has volunteered her home and we have had a good turnout. For now, some of our supplies are stored in homes as well and we are adjusting to multiple locations rather than one place for meetings and storage as we had at Assisi.

Area churches continue to support us in other ways. We were invited to tell the Women of Bethany Methodist Church the story of Bundles of Love and received a donation from them. They are considering a service project to us. Bethel Lutheran Church has pledged a portion of their Lenten offering to help us and over the past few years, St. Joseph Catholic Church of Theilmann has chosen sewing for babies as their Lenten project. Zumbro Lutheran Church Women continue to collect baby clothing for our layettes. We are appreciative of the funds received from the local Thrivent Insurance group as well.

Social workers at Mayo Medical Center, servicing St. Marys and Methodist Hospitals, and at Olmsted Medical Center keep our bundles on hand and notify us when they have special needs for burial gowns or preemie clothing. New Life Family Service distributes eight bundles a month for us. We continue to have an on-going working relationship with all of these fine institutions doing service for needy babies.

Our latest contact is with Olmsted Public Health. They have invited us to speak to the Olmsted Maternal & Child Health Advisory Committee. We will be supplying them with bundles and evaluating their needs and our ability to provide bundles to yet another local institution.

Our group is listed with CommunityNet, which is now a part of the United Way, and we are looking forward to working with them.

Over 600 items including cloth diapers, crib sheets and light blankets were sent with volunteers to Honduras as we also continue to reach out beyond our own community.

New volunteers have joined our group. Some of them are from Americor. We are excited to have more sewers and needleworkers. We have a need for publicity and look forward to growing.

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South Minneapolis Work Group

by Margaret Hart

BOL listed a volunteer opportunity in the Star Tribune and shortly thereafter the South Minneapolis group was formed. We are a group of six women who have known each other for many years and live in the same South Minneapolis neighborhood. The group meets the second Thursday of each month in Margaret Hart's home. Everyone likes the fact that the meetings are held in the neighborhood, making for a convenient and short commute.

Our meetings are informal and provide opportunities to share ideas and patterns. We set aside time to show our completed items but also to learn something new. The group has a couple 'high achievers' who often keep the rest of us on task and the creative juices flowing. We're able to catch up on the neighborhood news and contribute to the community at the same time.

The South Minneapolis group has been donating for a year and half with many gowns, sleepers, quilts and hats as well as hand knitted/crocheted blankets and sweaters.

Our finished items are delivered monthly to the South Metro work group.

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Skyway Seniors Work Group

by Teresa Wilts

About a year ago Winona Whitaker, a volunteer at the Skyway Senior Center, called me to inquire about making tied polar fleece blankets. One thing led to another and now she is the work coordinator for the Skyway Seniors Work Group in downtown Minneapolis.

Because the group has a small room in which to work, they focus on three main projects during their work meetings on the second Wednesday of the month: cutting and sewing sheets, tearing flannel into receiving blankets and cutting burp cloths and bibs from the leftover flannel, and sorting quilt blocks into kits.

The Skyway Seniors sorters can do 30–40 kits in three hours. Many of their members also sew, knit or crochet at home too, making beautiful quilt tops, hats, booties, sweaters, and afghans.

Winona has showed an amazing amount of patience getting the group started and making sure they have everything they need to get their work done, including driving up here to Mounds View to pick up the supplies and then drop off finished items.

I can't thank you enough, Winona, and everyone in your group for all you give and do for Bundles of Love.

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