Sewing from the Heart, a special interest group within Sun City West’s Rip ’N’ Sew club, recently received “thank you” notes from schoolchildren in New Mexico. Sewing from the Heart regularly donates sewn, crocheted and knitted items to a number of charities including the Phoenix Indian Medical Center.

Katherine Kendall, a Rip ’N’ Sew member and volunteer at the hospital, delivered another load of items made by Sewing from the Heart volunteers. Included were 25 animals, dolls, bears, etc., four bags of yarn, five hats, 12 bags for walkers and 15 blankets. 

“I gave the completed projects to my contact at the hospital,” Kendall said. She is from a small town in New Mexico within the Navajo Nation.

Last autumn, the hospital contact took some of the items the hospital couldn’t use (mainly fleece vests) to Crystal Boarding School, the public school for kindergarten through sixth-grade in her hometown of Navajo. The contact recently made another trip home, where she picked up notes the children had written about their vests.

“It gave me more of an insight into who is getting these things. They were really sweet,” Kendall said, and, “They had nice things to say.”

From a boy: “I’d like to be in space. I’d like to have a cat and a rabbit.”

A girl wrote about her vest: “They keep us comfy.”

“I love my monkey vest,” wrote another child whose vest was made from fleece with monkeys printed on it.

From another child: “I think you are kind. My favorite animals are cats and jellyfish.”

A girl noted: “You have good taste in design and color.”

Most of the donated items are used at the Phoenix hospital or at one of the outreach clinics that doctors and other medical professionals travel to.

Children needing dental work or having a diagnostic procedure that frightens them might be given a stuffed animal, Kendall said. Hats might go to patients who have lost hair due to chemotherapy, she said. Tiny caps are for newborns, she said.

Visit ripsew.scwclubs.com/about-location for more information.