Some people sew because they need to and some sew because they love it. For Chatham’s Angela O’Neil, need turned to passion, and at 88, she shares her passion with children in the poorest of countries.
O’Neil is one of many local volunteers who use their talent to sew clothes for children who live in poverty in countries such as Sierra Leone, El Salvador and Guatemala, and it is definitely a labour of love.
She said she started sewing for the St. Agnes Church Sewing Circle in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch left a path of devastation across Honduras and Central America. Hearing from a nurse who worked with the poor in Honduras about a need to be filled, then pastoral minister Heather Slavik and Bernice Chartrand recruited women from St. Agnes who could sew to make blankets for the survivors in Honduras.
“When we started the sewing circle, at first we thought it would be just until we filled the need in Honduras, but some of the older ladies asked if they could continue. It gave them a purpose and it kept going,” Slavik said.
The sewing circle grew as donations of material poured. Soon, O’Neil said she was making 24 dresses or shorts every two weeks. She has been doing it for the past 15 years.
Slavik said a team of women from the church cut the material from patterns and that makes it easy for the sewing team to whip together thousands of dresses over the course of a year.
On her second sewing machine, O’Neil hails from Dover Twp. farm country and is mother to 13 children, nine of which are girls. Sewing clothes for her girls was a way of life. It now keeps her busy and fulfilled seeing the smiles on the faces of the children wearing the items she has made.
“I have time on my hands and I love to sew. I love the colours they bring me, they’re so bright and I love seeing the pictures of the kids in the dresses I’ve made. I sewed for my own girls and now I am able to sew and no one complains,” O’Neil joked.
The sewer keeps a scrapbook of the pictures sent to her from the towns and villages where her dresses end up.
After the Honduras connection was no longer available, the sewing circle began making items for the Toronto-based Canadian Food for Children (CFFC), started in 1985 by a Toronto doctor at the request of Mother Theresa. CFFC is an international non-profit organization dedicated to providing food and other supplies to starving children in 20 countries. The incredible thing about CFFC, according to Slavik, is that Dr. Andrew Simone and his wife took a vow of poverty and all volunteers for the agency are unpaid and have been for over 20 years.
Locally, the Chatham-Kent CFFC is run by John and Sandra Van Raay. Each year, they send truckloads of food, clothes, toiletries, books and medical supplies to the poorest of countries. Just since January of this year, they are on the eighth transport truck of goods sent to the Toronto warehouse. The warehouse in Chatham is on 270 Inshes Ave. and is open Monday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon to receive donations.
O’Neil is very humble about her part in helping the children. She said she is just one of many sewers from all over Chatham-Kent who do what they can to help. And as long as her sewing machine holds out, that’s what she will keep doing.
For more information about Canadian Food for Children or to volunteer, please call the Van Raays at 519-352-6659.
