Driving down the bayou, seeing the fishing boats either on land or re-rigged with oil skimming equipment is such a sad sight. Seeing the shrimp and oyster plants closed down…it’s right there in front of us. Where I’ve been, I haven’t yet seen oil washing up on the shores, like we see in the news. This is a swampy area…bogs and long grass, long legged birds…looking out in the distance we can see the Gulf and we know that the oil’s right out there. The boats that head out don’t have to go far to find oil. The weather in the past few days have kept most boats from going out at all.

I met some fishermen on Monday who had spent upwards of $20,000 to re-rig their boats for skimming. They’d been working for 38 days straight, they said, and still hadn’t seen a paycheck.

I talked with a woman who’s family has made cast nets for generations…she’s made that her full time job since her husband died…and there just isn’t any need for the nets now.

I am staying in a bed and breakfast where other guests include BP workers and a woman who is busy relocating cleaned pelicans. Everyone’s focused on this monumental crisis.

We keep working and planning for SeaHope–our way to help the people who’s lives have been so drastically altered.

We are beginning a new project called SeaHope Partners. This arm of The Sewing Machine Project aims to help coastal residents affected by the oil spill in the Gulf. We have a couple of different ideas…both pretty exciting.

For starters, we are working on a new product idea that will make use of recycled materials, will be able to be sewn by coastal residents, and will create a fund to help mend these communities.

And if that not’s exciting enough…we are starting SeaHope Sew For Hope, a quilting challenge, offering quilters the opportunity to create and donate a quilt which will not only be featured on the SeaHope website, but will also be auctioned off to create funding for mending these communities.

So I am traveling in southern Louisiana this week–Terrebonne Parish. Evidence of BP is everywhere. Fishing boats are lined up and vacant. Fishermen we’ve talked to are telling us about rerigging their fishing boats to skim oil.

This community has a culture all it’s own. This is an area where fishing is a way of life. We must do all we can to help.

This article appeared in Sunday’s Times-Picayune out of New Orleans.

Nicole asked if The Sewing Machine Project would be willing to donate machines dedicated for this effort. I asked John Douthat from AllBrands and he was happy to help out. John is donating 25 new Brother machines which will form the base of this program. Next Friday we’ll present these wonderful machines to Nicole so her program can continue to grow.

What a gift it is to meet someone like Nicole, such a dedicated, articulate leader. What a gift it is to know John, a generous and kind businessman. And what a gift it is for me to have the opportunity to meet so many people who want to make the world a better place.

Mending communities, one sewing machine at a time.

The enclosed sewing machine belonged to my sister-in-law, Wendy. For 2 1/2 years, Wendy fought the good fight in her battle with lymphoma of the central nervous system.

I am working with her daughter, Molly, to find appropriate donation organizations for her Mom’s treasures. Molly remembers the frilly dresses her mother made for her and the original “Wendy designed” gowns she sewed and crocheted for her doll, Barbie.

Wendy would be much honored to know that her machine will be enjoyed by someone in Haiti who loves sewing as much as she. Molly and I are pleased to find the perfect home for Wendy’s machine.

Thank you for the wonderful work The Sewing Machine Project does for so many in so many ways!

At 88 years old, Eileen was ready to donate her beautiful sewing machine to our efforts, but she needed to qualify a few things first. Would it be used in this country? Where would it be used? What types of groups receive our machines? I assured her that it would indeed be used here in the US, most likely in the New Orleans area. “Well then,” she said “you’re welcome to my machine.”

So I stopped by her house to pick it up. It is an older Singer, a professional model, and quite heavy. I went into her basement to bring it up, its weight being just too much for her at this age. She invited me to sit down in her sunny kitchen and talk for awhile. We learned about one another. She’d been a home ec teacher for years. Although sewing wasn’t her forte, she was required to teach it and this was her “teaching machine”.

I told her about the Sewing Machine Project. I told her how it had begun. I told her how it had changed my life to create and lead this effort. And in our talking I felt blessed. Blessed to meet her, blessed to share this story, blessed to have this opportunity to meet so many people–giving machines, receiving machines, people involved in every facet of this organization.

When I left her home that afternoon I had to sit a moment out in my car and say a quiet “thank you” for the inspiration, for the people, for the kindness that I feel each and every day surrounding this organization. And every person reading this is a part of what this is. So thank you, and know how lucky I feel.

Please take a peek at the pictures on our Sewing Shares page.

Enclosed is a donation in memory of my friend, Jeanne Miller, who died last week from metastatic breast cancer. She was an avid quilter and seamstress. We saw information about your organization on Sewing With Nancy and were impressed with your outreach. Please use the donation in any way to further your efforts. Thanks for all your work to help women all over the world.

Barb Kopp

Quickly, however, our All Brands connection has become much more significant and their generosity has made this happen. When we needed to ship our machines to Louisiana for our recent Gulf Coast visit, All Brands served as our destination for the truck, offering plenty of warehouse space as well as a much-needed loading dock. When we needed our New Orleans machines at the University of New Orleans, shortly after our arrival, John arranged to have one of his technicians bring everything to us. Not only did he help us unload our UNO machines and supplies, he followed us on to where we were staying to drop off the rest!

When we began working on our Haiti initiative, I told John that my dream would be to send 100 sewing machines on this first shipment. In answer to my dream wish, John has donated 100 new Brother sewing machines. Those machines are palletized and ready to go.

John and I have discussed the idea of creating “sewing cottages”, trailers that would be outfitted as sewing rooms with generators, to be shipped to Haiti. John showed me one during my recent Gulf Coast visit. He is willing to purchase the trailer and outfit it as a sewing room if we can find a way to get it to Haiti. With an offer like that, you can bet I’m scrambling to find a way to make it happen!

Pulling together the Haiti shipment has been a challenge, logistically. The final piece was to get the machines we’d sent and those John had donated from Baton Rouge to Mississippi, where they could be loaded onto a container. Short on time, I asked John if he knew of any shipping deals we could get for this final shipment. My answer came just a few days ago, as John informed me that they’d shipped all 3 pallets to Mississippi, taking care of the shipping charges.

I have often said, in the building of this Project, that when we’ve needed something it has appeared and this is undeniably a huge example.  I offer my thanks to John and his staff for all of the help and support they’ve given The Sewing Machine Project.