Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
Community
The Sew What Club, started in 1957 with 11 members, includes, from left, Frances Walias, Gertrude Bernal, Josie Garcia, Ann Brown, and Manuela Rodriguez. The five women get together regularly to do their volunteer crafts and travel around the world with each other. Sewing circle helps support Sunnyvale Sew What Club given 2002 Outstanding Community Volunteer Award By Amy Jenkins Staying active is what members of the Sew What Club say keeps them looking and feeling young. But "staying active" is an understatement—the five members, all between the ages of 73 and 81, have dedicated the past 45 years to volunteering in every and any way possible to serve their community. After nearly five decades without formal recognition for their community service, the group was surprised and thrilled to receive the Outstanding Community Volunteer Award at the annual State of the City event on May 25. The club, which began in 1957 as a support group for its 10 members, soon became involved with community outreach. The women began sewing items for various hospitals and convalescent homes, making dresses for dolls at the Salvation Army, donating cakes to the senior center, organizing trips to raise money for charity, volunteering at Sunnyvale Community Services and serving as board members for various Sunnyvale clubs. The women, who have been friends and neighbors for more than 60 years, no longer meet twice a month to sew together. Instead, they now crochet and sew on their own time and meet once a month to discuss ways to help their community. "We all feel that we've been blessed in our lives, and so we gladly give back to people in our community," says Manuela Rodriguez, who moved to Sunnyvale from Spain in 1940 and worked in the city's public safety office. "We don't know what the word 'no' means." Every year the group donates handmade items to convalescent homes throughout Sunnyvale. So far they have personally delivered 1,740 lap blankets, 1,540 bibs, 990 slippers, 830 toiletry tote bags and 630 decks of cards. Rodriguez says recipients of the items show their appreciation by inviting the women to dinner. But the club isn't all hard work. One way the group raises money for charity is by organizing trips around the world—in which the women travel with a group of between 10 and 50 friends and family. The first trip was in 1963, to Spain and Italy, and they just returned from the most recent visit, to the Panama Canal. Even though the members' bus trips are paid for, they still give that money to charity, says Josie Garcia, 73. Having traveled to every continent except Antarctica, the only thing they have not done that Garcia wishes they could do is a safari in Africa. Rodriguez says their favorite trip was in February 1988, when they visited South America, because they invited the whole ship, including the captain, to a huge cocktail party with Spanish dancers. A few bookshelves in Rodriguez' home are filled with albums she has created from each trip, which document each day with written diary entries, postcards and pictures of attractions they visited. Another fundraiser is a Reno bus trip they organize twice a year. The money from the trips that is left over after buying sewing supplies has been donated to various charities. The group has donated more than $13,000 to Shrines Hospital for Children, Blind Babies Foundation, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Fremont High School Alumni Association Scholarship Program. Each of the members—Rodriguez, Garcia, Anne Brown, Gertie Bernal and Frances Walias—graduated from Fremont High School, and many of their children and grandchildren have graduated from there as well. Thus, the club means even more to the members than giving to charity. "This is more than a knitting club–it's a friend club," Walias says. Garcia adds, "The friendships mean a lot. If I need anything I know I can call my friends and they can call me. A lot of people don't have that today." |
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