Stake Humanitarian Project--What to Expect and What to Bring!

This Saturday, March 26th from 3:30-5 is our Stake Humanitarian Project at the Auburn Stake Center! It is for all women ages 8+ in the stake, but also for any women in the community! We want people from the community to feel welcome in our church, be able to get a tour from the sister missionaries, learn more about our humanitarian projects, and participate in the service projects. Feel free to invite friends, neighbors, and other women who may be interested in learning about our church or our humanitarian projects--it's an easy way to be a missionary!

For those of you thinking of coming, this will be such a fun service event! It is just an hour and a half, and will be jam packed with fun activities for all ages! Here's a list of some of the different service projects that will be set up and ready:

• Coloring and decorating greeting cards
• Coloring and decorating tray liners
• Stuffing Pillowcases
• Sorting boxes for hygiene kits
• Cutting up old towels for hygiene kit washcloths
• Making headbands out of old t-shirts
• Making sleeping mats out of grocery bags
• Tying quilts
• Making drawstring bags/kits for Days for Girls

It doesn't matter if you are an 8 year old who wants to color or an experienced seamstress, there is something at this event for you to do! 

If you would like to donate, here's a list of donation items:

Travel size items: shampoo and conditioner, body lotion, lip balm, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, bar soap

Auburn Food Bank Items: Diapers, canned fruits or veggies, canned chili or stew, mac 'n cheese, peanut butter, juice (any size)

Humanitarian Projects: old t-shirts (men's or women's, any size or color, to be cut up)

Fabric (2 yards cotton/poly brightly colored floral or geometric patterns)

Old Towels (to be cut into short term washcloths)

**Also, there is a sale at Fred Meyer right now for twin sheets for $2.99 + a 10% off coupon! This is the cheapest deal ever! We can take these in any color!**

We are so excited to be able to finish a great deal of projects in just an hour and a half with so many of our sisters! 5:00 will be the General Women's Meeting Broadcast, and we are excited to serve and then to be spiritually fed! See you all on Saturday!

Here is the invitation if you missed getting yours in church:

Auburn Food Bank- Sleeping mats, hygiene kits, pillows, food, and more!

When I think of food banks, I think of donating canned goods at school drives, but I didn't realize how much more the Auburn Food Bank organizes and donates, and how much we do with them. As part of the humanitarian efforts of the Auburn Stake, we do organize food drives, such as the upcoming food drive on March 26th! (They are in need of specifically: peanut butter, diapers, canned goods, juice and mac 'n cheese)

However, we also put together hygiene kits; We cut up donated old towels for washcloths and gather travel size shampoos, conditioners, toothbrushes, toothpaste, body lotion and lip balm. One cool fact is that the LifeCenter Northwest (where we donate quilts for donors) helps us with our hygiene kits! As they travel around when organs are donated, they stay in hotels, and pick up their samples to donate to us for our hygiene kits! This is something quick and easy that anyone can do when they travel to help with our hygiene kits.

The food bank also needs pillows and sometimes quilts, so we make and stuff pillows (one of the activities to participate in on March 26th!), and occasionally donate some of our quilts to them. 

The most interesting project to me is that we can make sleeping mats for the homeless for next to no cost, but lots of time! We ask for donations of used, clean plastic bags from shopping trips, cut them up, and tie them together to make sleeping mats! The result is amazing!  

These are just a few images from google, but you get the idea of what they look like! I saw one of these completed sleeping mats at our humanitarian gathering last Tuesday, and it was amazing to see how simple grocery bags can come together to make something so useful! 

So, from now on, we hope that you can pass along your old grocery bags! They go a long way! Come to our humanitarian project on March 26th to learn how to make these sleeping pads! 

Days for Girls

Before I became a part of the humanitarian committee for the Auburn Stake, I didn't realize that these women did more projects than just quilt making; There are lots of wonderful needs that are met through a large variety of amazing projects!

The project that I think is the coolest is called "Days for Girls" and here is the link to their website for more details: http://www.daysforgirls.org/

The website has many more amazing pictures, stories and facts about this program. I was hooked just reading about it!

In summary, in countries such as Uganda and Kenya, girls don't have enough money for disposable feminine hygiene products, so they would simply stay home and miss school during those days each month. 5 days a month adds up to 2 months of the year that girls were missing school, and women were missing work. Think of what these girls and women could achieve with #5moredays.

The solution: reusable, re-washable hygiene kits!

  

These kits include washable pads, liners, and underwear in fun patterns and a cute drawstring bag so that girls wouldn't be ashamed for having a period. They can attend school and work, and continue their education with greater ease! One kit lasts 2-4 years, adding up to 240 extra days!

 

Over 200,000 girls in 100 nations have receive kits and it has changed lives! Before kits like these, 1 out of 4 girls in India would quit school once they started menstruating. 36% of girls in Uganda would skip school each month, and now, it's only 8%, These kits are easy to make and assemble, but they make a huge difference in the lives of these women. 

Come to our event at the stake center on March 26th to learn more and help make these kits, or any Tuesday from 10-12! If those times don't work for you, you can even make these at home or simply donate materials. This is such a cool project and we are lucky to get to be a part of it!

LifeCenter Northwest- One Quilt Story

Every Tuesday, we women in the Auburn community come together to sew, to laugh, to quilt, and to serve. One of the projects that we are privileged to participate in is for LifeCenter Northwest. Here is the link to their info page if you want to learn more about their amazing program: http://www.lcnw.org/about/

To summarize, LifeCenter Northwest is a non-profit organization that saves lives through organ and tissue donation. One way that they honor the donors is through a quilt. When a child or youth is dying and their organs and tissues will be donated, there is a special ceremony where the donor's hand prints and footprints can be inked and marked on the LifeCenter signature quilt. This quilt is laid upon them as a mark of respect. After the organs have been donated, the parents of the child who donated the organs receives the special quilt to remember the loving sacrifice. LifeCenter has an amazing counseling program to help grieving families and save lives, and we are grateful to be a part of this process.

This week, one of the quilts that we made was for an 18 week old baby girl. Although devastating to think of one so young passing away, we can see the marks of her hands (and her parents' hands) upon the quilt and this gives us hope. Hope for a new child whose life is now saved. These precious prints upon this beautiful quilt will help ensure that her donation is always remembered. This is much like the nail prints in the hands and feet of the Savior, who died saving all of us.