Woman's Club sews bears for nonprofits

The Plains Woman's Club was getting into the Christmas spirit even before Halloween, working on sewing projects for two different nonprofit groups. "It gets us in the Christmas spirit and it's fun," said Shirley Nettleton, the primary seamstress for the making of one hundred Teddy bears.

This is the first year that the club is sewing bears and dolls for Joint Operation Mariposa (JOM), a nonprofit organization that usually works with military veterans, but this year will be handing out presents to children.

More than a dozen members of the Plains Woman's Club have put in over a hundred hours cutting, stuffing and sewing 10-inch tall dolls and Teddy bears for JOM over the last five weeks. On Friday seven ladies gathered at the VFW to make Christmas stockings for the Sanders County Coalition for Families (SCCFF), a nonprofit group based in Thompson Falls that works with victims and survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse.

The Plains Woman's Club has been providing Christmas stockings to SCCFF as part of the group's Christmas Adopt-A-Family program for the last 10 years. The stockings will go to children that have experienced domestic violence or child abuse. Ten members of the club have spent the last two weeks working on the 17-inch long stockings. "There's some really nice ones here and a good variety," said Heather Allen, the club's first vice president.

The ladies spent over three hours working on the stockings Friday and Monday to finish their goal of 50, said Shirley King, one of the seamstresses, along with her sister, Judy Stephens and Janet Brandon. Deb Cleveland and Angela Muse cut the pieces while Allen was at the pinning station.

Several of the women were also involved in the JOM project, dividing up the tasks - cutting, stuffing, pinning, and sewing, which included some sewing by hand. King, Stephens, Judy Hawley, Adrienne Galinat, and Dayna Dickerson, who are also part of the Stitch N Time Sewing Club in Paradise, had about 30 dolls finished Monday. Several of the women also worked on the project individually at their homes.

"It's always great when one nonprofit can help out another," said Muse, the project leader for the doll/ bear project. "It is our pleasure anytime we can do anything for the kids in our community," she added. The ladies divided into two groups, one for the dolls and one for the bears. They started on Halloween day, when Allen, Muse, Cleveland, Janie Hom, Janet Brandon, and Debbi Kirschbaum, the Plains Woman's Club president, met at the VFW to cut the patterns.

Each was made up of several pieces, which were stuffed and sewn together. Unstuffed ears were added to the bears. Yarn hair and aprons were placed on the dolls. The workers met at different times at different places. Two weeks ago, Brandon, Vickie Kelsey, Dianne Berg, Pat Farmer, and Nettleton met at her home just east of Plains to work on the bears, a task that took them about 12 hours. The Teddy bear group put in more than 91 hours total to get 65 bears done with Nettleton as the seamstress in the group. She said they probably won't finish until after Thanksgiving.

"We enjoy working together for a community cause and this is like we're having an old fashioned get-together," said Nettleton. They had a variety of different colors and designs, but they all had their own personality, said Nettleton. It took the group about two hours to do each bear. The material for the bears came from scrap the women had on hand. In addition, Farmer cut up a pair of her husband's jeans for the bear project.

"I think it's great that the Plains Woman's Club stepped up immediately to assist another local nonprofit organization in this new project," said Allen. "When the ladies heard about the need for dolls and bears to be made for Santa's Workshop, they were ready to start that day. With the Plains Woman's Club being an organization that helps the community where and when they can, this project was one they loved immediately, especially knowing that every child who comes to see Santa at his workshop gets to pick out one of the toys available," said Allen, who will be painting faces on all the dolls and bears.

The goal for the Plains Woman's Club was to make one hundred dolls and Teddy bears by sometime in mid-December for JOM, which is also looking for volunteers to help cut, sand, paint and assemble wooden toys that Dave Williams, founder of JOM, will be handing out to kids. This is JOM's first year handing out toys to the kids in the community and we are very delighted to be working with the amazing members of the Woman's Club on this project," said Williams.