rightly colored swaths of cloth spread across the massive table, surrounded by the hum of sewing machines.
A group of volunteers worked intently stitching the fabric together. Their goal, as it has been for months, is to create close to 90 quilts, special gifts for every patient at Community Hospital South.
Each item will be folded, packaged in a plastic bag and tied up nicely with a ribbon. About 2 p.m. on Christmas Day, the women come to the hospital to go room-to-room, handing out their gifts.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]
Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“There are a lot of tears,” said Judy Davisson, who helped start the volunteer group. “Our main thought was, there is always somebody in the hospital who doesn’t have anybody with them on Christmas. This way, at least they’ll get a present.”
For the past four years, volunteers have been meeting weekly at the hospital to sew, knit, croquet and quilt items of comfort for patients and families. They donate their time to craft red, white and blue quilts for veterans, and stylish hats to keep cancer patients warm.
Newborn babies are given soft blankets, and new mothers receive a handmade burping pad. Whenever a cancer patient finishes treatment, they receive a quilt.
The group is proud to use their skills to make people’s time in the hospital a little easier. It’s a mission that they cherish.
“I’ve done charitable sewing for different groups. But I’ve never felt as valued as what you feel here,” said Anita Fox, a member of the volunteer sewing group. “It’s astounding the different kinds of things they give the patients.”
Every week, volunteers pack into a conference room inside Community Hospital South to sew items of comfort for patients and families.
The group comes from all over the southside, united by their twin interest in philanthropy and fabric arts.
Marian Barber of Indianapolis had retired two years ago and was looking for something to keep her busy.
“My grandson called the hospital for me. I had retired from being an insurance agent, and I was bored, so he tried to find something for me to do,” she said with a laugh.
She found her way toward the sewing group. Barber had been sewing since she was in high school, and loved the way she could make fabric and thread bend to her creative whims.
“The sewing machine never talks back to you,” she said.
Her specialty within the group is making quilts and stuffed animals for children. The items help to calm kids while they’re in the hospital, she said.
“They give them to kids who come in to the emergency room. They’re scared, and so the hospital gives them a toy to make them feel better,” she said.
Davisson is the driving force behind the volunteer group. When she retired in 2012, she decided she needed something to keep her occupied. Volunteering at Community Hospital South seemed like the best option.
Since she liked to sew in her spare time, she asked if anyone made items to give to patients who were admitted.
At the time, a handful of women were making overstuffed pillows to give to children, and bags that could hang on a walker for patients who needed that.
Since taking over, Davisson now directs a group that makes 27 different items for people who come to the hospital.
Young children are given blankets with special loops and straps to help keep their hands busy. When a baby is born in the hospital and is part of an adoption, he or she is given a knit layette sweater and cap.
The group makes special pillowcases for children admitted to Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health and Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent.
“We’re able to give each department — emergency room, surgery, maternity — something,” she said.
The group is an evolved version of an older program at the hospital, Newborns in Need, that provided items for babies in need. When that organization dissolved, those who enjoyed sewing migrated to this new volunteer group.
Fox, a southside Indianapolis resident, had been part of Newborns in Need. For her, the value is seeing her interest in fabric result in something that can make such an impact in someone’s life.
“I just love doing it. It keeps me busy. I’m a widow, and it keeps me out of trouble,” she said.
Every Tuesday is a sewing day at the hospital. Close to 20 women gather, their sewing machines in tow, to work on varying projects. They typically finish 100 items on those days, Davisson said.
The quilters who make the Christmas items come on a separate evening twice a month.
The whole room is full of people working. Even those who don’t sew are invited, to help with cutting and pinning and stuffing the creations.
“We all learn from each other. I might know a tip and someone else might know something different, and pretty soon, you learn,” said Jean Broadbent, another member of the group. “We get good ideas from each other.”
Broadbent had been offering her sewing skills as a volunteer for nearly 10 years. She was introduced to the Community South organization after volunteer supervisor Katy Stallings recommended that she assist Davisson in the effort.
The southside Indianapolis resident has been quilting and sewing for most of her life. She made all of her children’s clothes when they were growing up, and sewed her husband’s suits for him.
For her work on quilts, she has won awards at the Indiana State Fair and local contests.
“It’s very relaxing, and it’s extremely rewarding,” she said. “Your artistic impulses come out when you’re doing these; you never really make two that are alike.”
Thread, fabric, sewing machines and anything else that the volunteers think they might be able to use goes into a storage closet at the hospital set aside for the projects.
Shelves are stacked floor to ceiling with plastic containers, filled with the raw materials such as flannel, yarn and adornments needed for their work. Other bins store the sweaters, hats and blankets that have been finished and are waiting to be given out.
Area sewing groups and individuals donate left-over material to the group. Families cleaning out the home of a loved one after they die often contribute sewing supplies.
The Common Threads Quilt Club, an organization based in Mt. Comfort, provided a stack of quilt tops that they no longer needed. All the hospital volunteers have to do is put the two sides together, making their work slightly easier.
Those particular quilts will be handed out to patients at the end of their lives, to comfort them in the final hours, Davisson said.
“It gives them something to have on their bed besides just hospital sheets. Then the family gets to take it home and keep it,” she said.
Some of their projects extend beyond the hospital. The women have started weaving sleeping mats out of plastic bags to give to the homeless throughout central Indiana, in Haiti and in Louisiana.
To help the nonprofit organization Water With Blessings, which works to bring clean water to needy populations, the group knits covers to help protect the water filters distributed in countries such as Ecuador, Nepal and Congo.
The South hospital is the only branch in the Community Health Network to have a dedicated group of sewing volunteers, but its success has inspired similar efforts at the East and North campuses.
“You have to have the people to do the work,” Davisson said. “Each one of these ladies brings something to our group. Without them, you couldn’t do this.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="At a glance" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Community Hospital South
Sewing volunteers
Who: A group of about 20 women who volunteer each week to sew, crochet and quilt items for patients.
What they make: Sweaters and caps for newborn babies, quilts for patients at the end of their lives, hats for cancer patients, patriotic blankets for veterans, bags to hang on walkers, among many other items.
Where they meet: Community Hospital South, 1402 E. County Line Road, Indianapolis
When they meet: Every Tuesday morning, and the first and third Wednesday evenings of each month.
How to get involved: Contact Katy Stallings, volunteer supervisor at Community Hospital South, at (317) 887-7145.
[sc:pullout-text-end]
