Super Exciting 2016 Stats and Stories!

This past Tuesday was the last service day until January 10th. Here are the statistics for our 2016 year of humanitarian service!

Approximately 3,000 service hours rendered by sisters in our stake.  This includes hours spent on Tuesdays and hours spent by many sisters at home making quilt tops, pillow casing quilts, making hygiene kits, picking sheets, working on pinwheels and logos, assembling donor quilt kits, lending technical support and administrative support.

300 total quilts were completed and donated this year.  Here is the break down:  247 quilts were made and donated to Harborview Critical Care Unit,  members of our Stake, and members of our Auburn Community.

40 quilts were made and donated as Donor Quilts to Life Center NW.   10 heavy duty quilts were made specifically for the homeless and the veterans and donated to the Auburn Food Bank.  3 Queen size quilts were hand quilted this year and given away.

20 Plastic Bag mats were crocheted and donated to the Auburn Food Bank for the Homeless.

1,560 Hygiene Kits;  donations collected and kits assembled and donated to the Auburn Food Bank on a weekly basis.

40 pillow were made and stuffed and donated to the Auburn Food Bank for the homeless.

10 sisters took our basic sewing class and learned to sew this year!

We currently have 12-15 sisters working from home each week and most of them attend on Tuesdays as well....such dedication!

In March we hosted a Humanitarian Event in conjunction with the Women's Session of Conference.  Many hygiene kits were made, quilts tied, cards made and Days for Girls kits were sewn by sisters in our stake, all in one hour and a half blitz before the session started!

This year we started our Facebook page and our Blog and we are associated with Just Serve!

We have 2 sisters from other stakes that come and help us on Tuesdays!

In addition to the many talents that are so willingly shared we have a number of sisters that can really bake and they share their baked goods with us each Tuesday!  Not to mention our wonderful Potlucks!  We've printed some of their recipes on our Blog!

We have 2 dedicated Priesthood brethren who set up our tables and chairs and provide support to us each week!

We currently have 22 women who are serving on the Humanitarian Committee and more being called to serve!

At the Ensign Choir concert at the Stake Center a few weeks ago, one of the choir members shared the story of her son who had a heart defect and passed away in April.  They were able to donate his eyes so that another person could see.  Her family received one of our Organ Donor Quilts.  When we hear stories like that it is bittersweet.  We are happy that the family received one of the quilts that we made and saddened for their loss.   While we don't hear many stories of the families who receive our donor quilts, once in a while we do.  It was gratifying to hear of a member of our church who received one of our quilts.

At our last meeting and potluck of 2016, we met Sarah from Duvall who volunteers at Life Center NW.  Her son needed a new heart and received one because of Life Center NW.  Her son is alive today because of the donation of a heart from a 5 year old girl. ( This was several years ago, before we started making quilts for them.)  Sarah packages up the quilts and gets them ready for delivery.  She noticed our tag sewn into each of our quilts and had to come and meet us all in Auburn.  She shared her story and assured us that these quilts make all the difference to the families.  How sweet it was to hear from her.

As we end our 5th year of our Humanitarian Project, we'd like to express our gratitude to all those who help us.  If you come regularly or come occasionally, thank you!  If you work from home, thank you!  If you have donated money or goods to our effort, thank you!  If you serve on our committee, thank you!  Thank you to our Stake Presidency and Stake Relief Society Presidency who support us continually!  Enjoy some rest and relaxation during the holidays and we'll see you back on Tuesday, January 10, 2017!

Teaching the Refugee Family About Halloween

Teaching About Halloween- From Kim

Sara and I are enjoying our time with MuMu and her family.  Of course, this time of year brings a holiday that is foreign to most refugees...Halloween!  We've been explaining trick or treating, costumes, pumpkins, bats, witches, ghosts, haunted houses and the traditions that go along with this uniquely American tradition!  We've also been busy with parent teacher conferences, getting their internet hooked up (which was a huge undertaking and took several weeks) and carving pumpkins!  We've treated them to different kinds of candy, cookies, breads and hot chocolate to experience Halloween and all things autumn.  It's been fun!

The kids are doing remarkably well in school, given their previous experience with school in a refugee camp.  Having the internet has opened up quite a bit of discussion on the camp that they lived in for most of their lives.  We are starting to understand what it was like for them.  They have shown us pictures of their camp, their house, where they went to school, the market and generally how they lived.  One day their camp caught on fire and they had to flee for their lives as the fire spread so rapidly.  It was a very scary time for them.  They lost what little they had, but the next day they started to rebuild. We also got a short history lesson on the wars and fighting in their country that led them to be refugees.  We could hardly believe the stamina and determination of this family.  They are so thankful to be here in the United States.  They feel safe here, and are determined to stay and make a new life for themselves.  It is difficult for them on a daily basis, yet they stay the course and move forward everyday.  We so admire their courage and love this family!

We will be taking them to our ward Halloween Party on Saturday so they can have a hands on experience with all the traditions of Halloween!  We're looking forward to introducing them to our ward family and maybe opening the door to some missionary opportunities!

Fall 2016 Humanitarian Updates & Info

The Humanitarian project has been up and running this fall, and we are so happy with all of the volunteers, time, and donations that have helped us to be successful!

Those sisters who are called to make quilt tops have been busy and active as ever and have done a fantastic job. We are so grateful for their time and talents in crafting these beautiful quilt tops. We have an abundance of quilts ready to be tied. At this point, we mostly need volunteers to come help tie! It's a lot of fun to sit and chat with other women doing such meaningful work. Even if you know nothing about quilting, you can be taught how to tie a quilt in just a few minutes, and can be a great addition to our team! Please feel free to come Tuesdays and help us tie our piles of gorgeous quilts!

We are so grateful to sisters who help donate fabric that make our quilts possible. Recently, a special thanks to Sharon Stablein from the Lake Holm Ward, Sandy Knebel from the Puyallup Stake, and Linda Anderson from the Game Farm Ward for their donations of beautiful quilting fabric!  It will be put to good use and bless the lives of many people! (Reminder also that Fred Meyer has their sale on sheets this week!)

Game Farm Ward has been hosting this month, and Mill Pond Ward begins in November! Thanks for past and present volunteers with help setting up and taking down. It's only possible with those like you! Our new hosting schedule is ready for 2017! Copies are ready on Tuesday at the church for pick up.

The last day of our humanitarian service for the year is Tuesday November 15th, and we have a special treat! We are having a potluck lunch that day with Life Center NorthWest joining us.  We will be making our last donation of Donor Quilts to them and enjoying their company.  If you can, please bring a main dish and salad or dessert to share! We will resume our normal schedule on Tuesday, January 10th, 2017 at 10am. 

Whether you have time, talent, or funds, there is something for you to help us with! We can always use material donations, financial donations (through the paper tithing slip, under "Other", write "Sew Much Love Humanitarian Auburn Stake") or the time and talents of those wonderful women who come and serve with us at home and each Tuesday. A huge thank you for all those who have helped to move this work along this fall! 

We hope to see you all Tuesday!

A Few Small Miracles

A Few Small Miracles 

The other day after watching General Conference, we watched a bit of the movie 17 Miracles, depicting just a few of the miracles the pioneers experienced on their journey west. Through our humanitarian efforts making quilts for organ donors and for those in need, we have seen many miracles! Here are just three of the most recent miracles we have seen, comforting families through our quilts.

Recently there was a sweet 6-year old boy who was admitted to the hospital with new onset seizures and it turned out that he had a non operable brain tumor. He had a sweet twin brother, and they put both of their hand prints on the quilt that we made. The twin asked if he got to keep his brother's blanket. The family was so grateful for the quilt. They told everyone who came in to say goodbye to their little boy that a beautiful group of church ladies made the quilt, so they were wrapping him up tight in it. They said you can't go wrong wrapped in a blanket made by church ladies! 

There was a woman driving home with a friend from volleyball practice in Montana, and the friend hit a pole and ejected her. She had a devastating head injury. She had a very lovely family and they were grateful for the quilt.

There was recently a donor quilt on a 16 week old baby boy. It meant a lot to his mom to have that piece of remembrance for her little son after he passed. 

Working with Refugees- School, Cooking, and Money

As mentioned before in a previous blog post, two of the women from Sew Much Love also work with a refugee family from Burma on a regular basis. Here is Kim's latest update:

     Sara and I have been busy this summer with MuMu's family. We have taken them to the movies, to a couple of parks, taught them some board games and grown very close to this sweet family.
     It was interesting getting the kids registered for school, but after 5 hours and 3 different schools we got all three kids enrolled. We taught them about the school bus and where to catch it. Our middle schooler has to walk so we made sure his counselor knew that and she is watching out for him. We managed to figure out how to get them on a school lunch program only to discover they don't like the food! (Sigh)     There are still a few glitches, like figuring out tutors and ESL classes for Mom, but they seem to manage.     When I was in high school I struggled in Math. Can you imagine not speaking English very well, not understanding a calculator and not understanding Algebra at all?? And it's only the third week of school!! That's what our sweet Paw Say deals with everyday, yet she continues to try,  giving her best effort.     In Burma, children are not allowed to go to school, so even though this is difficult, they are determined.     Every week Sara and I come away with deep feelings of love and gratitude for this family. They are amazing and are figuring it out and grateful for the opportunity to be in America. We do not believe in coincidences...we were meant to meet the MuMu family and love them and serve them. In return, they have changed our lives forever!

Here are some pictures of Kim and Sara's cooking class with the refugee family! They taught them how to make brownies and caramel popcorn!

Here is a picture of when they taught them how to count money: 

If you are interested in helping refugee families like Sara and Kim, please feel free to contact them for more information! Here is the link video that the church released recently about refugees:

https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/refuge-from-the-storm?cid=HP_TH_22-9-2016_dWEL_fmc_xLIDyL1-A_

Our Favorite Potluck Recipes!

We have potlucks with some of our service days, and a few of our favorite recipes are here! These were two of the most highly requested recipes after our last potluck--Thanks for sharing these wonderful recipes with us, ladies!

Linda Barnett's Snickerdoodle Bars

Betty Crocker Snickerdoodle Bars

Prep time: 20 min

Total Time: 1 hour 45 min

Makes: 24 bars

2 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 ¼ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp salt

¾ cup unsalted butter, softened

1 ¼ cups granulated sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Cinnamon Filling

1 Tbl. granulated sugar

1 Tbl. cinnamon

Glaze (optional)

1 cup powdered sugar

1 to 2 Tbl milk

¼ tsp vanilla

1.      Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray or grease bottom only of a 13x9 inch baking pan with cooking spray. In small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

2.      In large bowl, beat butter with electric mixer on high speed until creamy.  Beat in sugars. Gradually beat in eggs and vanilla into sugar mixture until combined. On low speed, beat in dry ingredients until combined.

3.      Spoon half the batter into pan; spread evenly. Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture evenly over batter. If desired sprinkle 1/3 cup cinnamon chips or chopped pecans over cinnamon-sugar filling in center of bars.

4.      Dollop teaspoon size amounts of remaining batter evenly over cinnamon-sugar mixture.

5.      Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

6.      In small bowl, stir glaze ingredients until smooth and thin enough to drizzle. Drizzle over bars. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. 

LeeAnn Rick's Coconut Sugar Cookie Bars

Ingredients

For the Bars:

• 2½ cups flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup coconut oil, soft
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 TBS sour cream
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Frosting:

• 5 TBS butter, softened
• 3 TBS milk
• 1 TBS vanilla
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup shredded sweetened coconut, divided 

Instructions

1.        Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

2.        In a medium sized bowl, combine your flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3.        In a large bowl, cream together your coconut oil and sugar for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

4.        Add in your egg, sour cream, coconut, and vanilla extract and stir until combined.

5.        Slowly add in your flour mixture while stirring until everything is combined. Dough is crumbly.

6.        Press the dough into a greased 9x13 baking pan and spread out evenly.

7.        Bake for 14-15 minutes until edges are barely a golden color.

8.        Allow to cool completely.

9.        Meanwhile mix together your butter, milk, vanilla extract, coconut extract and powdered sugar for your frosting until nice and creamy. Fold in about ⅓ - ½ cup of shredded coconut into your frosting.

10.     Spread your frosting evenly over the top of your cooled cookie bars.

11.     Sprinkle remaining shredded coconut evenly over the top.

12.     Slice into squares and serve.

Working with Refugees

We have heard a lot in the church lately, both in General Conference and in our recent Stake Conference, about how we should be helping refugees in our communities. Kim and Sara have started mentoring a refugee family and have had some great experiences so far! We will be keeping up on the blog some of their experiences (and photographs!) with this wonderful family--talk to them if you are interested in getting involved! Here is Kim's insight so far:

The MuMu family had lived in a refugee camp for over 5 years before applying, being carefully screened and finally accepted to come to the United States.  They arrived on May 23, 2016 with very little except the clothes on their back. Their family consists of Pah Da, the father,  MuMu, the mother, Pah Say, daughter (15) Htee, son (13)  Saw, son (5).   Through the Lutheran Community Services Program, they are given a place to live and are helped by a caseworker for three months.  During this time they are expected to take ESL classes, find employment,  enroll their children in school, figure out public transportation, learn to get to the grocery store, learn about banking, pay bills, and learn American ways.  It is overwhelming for most families at first, but with time and mentoring they come to understand and adjust to living in a completely different culture.  Sara and I go each Tuesday evening and spend a couple of hours with them. 

 This Tuesday was Htee's 13th birthday.  We decided to throw him an American Birthday Party, complete with hats and banners!  We're not sure they loved the hats, but they were good sports about wearing them, at least for the picture!  We took pizza, watermelon, cherries, cookies and ice cream for dinner.  We found out that they have a cousin who speaks English and lives nearby so we invited her as well. (She made things much easier for our second visit!)  The pizza was enjoyed by everyone of course, but what we didn't expect was their generosity in providing us food from their culture.  We were a bit nervous, but plunged in and tasted everything they made.  It was great!  We really did like it...which surprised us both!  We gave Htee a new soccer ball and bought new flip flops for the whole family (thank you Fred Meyer for having them at 50% off!)  Sara purchased a couple of games she thought might be fun to play...Chutes and Ladders and Spot It.  They were huge hits!  It was tender to see Mom and Dad interact with their children while learning a new game!  We enjoyed our cookies and ice cream although we think American cookies are a bit too sweet for them right now!  We left them a bunch anyway!  We also took them quilts, of course, which they seemed to love!  When it was time to leave they gave us hugs, so we think they like us!  We sure like them! 

Ways to Help This Summer

Although we are officially off-duty for our stake humanitarian Tuesday morning service days, we'll be back up and rearing to go in the fall, so we have lots to do to prepare! There are still several ways that you can help this summer to make our humanitarian efforts easier in the fall!

1) Donate money-- we don't have a budget, so we need funds to keep our projects running! If you can donate, even $5 will help! Simply fill out a paper tithing form, and where it says "Other", write in: "Sew Much Love, Auburn Stake Humanitarian" with the amount. (This won't work if you put it in the Humanitarian section or if you do it online)

2) When you're on vacation, pick up travel size shampoos, soaps, etc. at hotels! These are PERFECT for our hygiene kits! Tell your family and friends to gather the free hotel samples and bring them in! Here is a picture of some of the kits we completed this past Tuesday, donated to the Auburn Food Bank!

3) Summer is a great time to clean and organize your house! Why not go through your fabric? In the fall, we'll be making Halloween and Christmas quilts, so if you are able to donate any fabric, we would be much appreciated! (Any fabric will do, of course, even if it's not Holiday themed!) Also, keep your eye out for summer sales on sheets and fabrics and feel free to pick up some for the cause!

4) We are looking for people who can sew quilts (pillowcase!) We have lots of sisters who come and help in other ways, but we can get bogged down and back logged if we don't have enough sisters sewing quilt tops. If you need instruction, we'd be THRILLED to teach you how and you can make them at your own time at home during the summer. This will help immensely in the fall when we're back in business!

5) Invite your fellow ward members and friends to join our FB group "Sew Much Love" or follow our blog! Then they can see upcoming posts during the summer and get excited about serving in the fall.

Happy Summer!

Mother & Daughter Event

Thanks to everyone who came to our last Sew Much Love day  today before our summer break! We got a lot done, had some great treats, and had a great time! 

LifeCenter Visitors

This past Tuesday, we had our usual humanitarian project volunteer work, but we had visitors from LifeCenter Northwest! We have been working with their organization for a few years now, and we love partnering with them! If you want to know more about what their organization does in detail, feel free to read about it on a previous post. 5 of their staff members came to see how we operate, to sew with us, and to have a big Hawaiian Haystack lunch! They were so grateful for all of the work that we put into our quilts for the families with whom they work. It was also so great to have so many volunteers (double our usual number!) and to share what we do with others in the community. Thanks to everyone who came and participated! It was wonderful to see so many faces and accomplish so much!

The official pictures are coming soon, but here are the amateur shots that I got quickly: