In The News - Power for the mending team
By Brett Butterstein
Bigfork Eagle
Twenty five years ago a few women from the Methodist Church decided to get together and help the Lake View Care Center residents with clothing repairs. Gerry Berg, one of the founding members of this group, later would donate two sewing machines for the cause, according to another founding member, Dorothy Fishbaugh.
Fishbaugh reminices on the outset of the sewing group. "It was always fun to get together, we not only mended but we talked. It was just a good get together - it was good for all of us."
Today the help continues, the group is represented by almost every church in the area, and the Lake View Care Center couldn't be more grateful.
Last week, Vicki Cook, head house keeper at the center, bought the sewing ladies a bran new Singer sewing machine. According to group member Florence North, those old machines were just worn out.
This mending team, who call themselves "the sewing group," come to the center once a month and repair resident's clothing that need attention. Cook says if it wasn't for the group, the mending just wouldn't get done.
"You see there's people who live [at the center] who have no families, and some have no family at all, period, and their clothes wear out after awhile and they have to be mended." says North, who was once the director of nurses at the center.
"The only thing we don't do are zippers," says North. "But there are so many things, mostly seems and buttons, stuff like that that have to be mended. Of course you have some people that bring their [clothes] up and think they will last for the rest of their life, and sometimes they [only] last for three or four years after they're up there. So they need a lot of mending."
For each visit the group enjoys coffee and cookies while they work diligently, diminishing the pile of repairs that have accumulated in the laundry room.
"... It's kind of a social gathering and it's kinda nice because [we] know some of the residents up there too," says North.