Joanne Williams
Editor
(Photo provided – These area women, and so many others, offer their time, shoulders, talents and treasures to swe dresses for those who need them, and encouragement to one another.)
There are women making a difference in quiet ways across the globe. It’s when you meet a group of them in your own community that you realize the impact they have on others, and themselves.
Take the group that Linda Nichols has inspired since 2009. Nichols, of Bellevue, worked with SIREN/Eaton Shelter for 17 years, but her declining health saw her soon in a wheelchair. A visiting cousin, a missionary in Jamaica, helped her see she could continue to serve. “He got me a pattern,” Nichols said, and she has been sewing ever since.
Friends, family, acquaintances, church family and more have since joined her, and sewed 65,000 dresses for girls around the world.
“I’d say 85 percent stay in the United States,” Nichols said, citing donations to the local pregnancy center and homeless shelters as examples. “Anywhere that will take them, we send them, too.”
A group of women gathered a week or so ago in Charlotte and sewed 300 dresses. The clothes, and some accessories find their way to the streets of Paris, Mercy Ships, and to Shoebox Ministry, which sends shoeboxes filled with items to many countries.
Area churches are helpers and contributors, including the Church of Christ in Charlotte, Bellevue Christian Church, and City on a Hill in Olivet.
“It’s all about the children,” Nichols said.
It is much more.
“It is a reason to get out of bed in the morning,” she said, for folks like her facing illnesses, to those suffering from grief and loneliness.
Cousin Sandi Craven is another helping hand. “Linda sews every single day,” Craven said. There are lots of people in the group (that help) as well. They give of their time, talents and treasures. Fabric is donated, shipping is paid for, donor funds appear to help foster the cause.
“I am one of the most blessed people” through this ministry, Nichols said.
