MMDC #7--Poseyville, MI, Day One

The team from Poseyville, MI, started work today. Two gals and three guys worked in the finishing room, sanding and sealing 16 school desks! Tomorrow they’ll do the second sanding and second coat of polyurethane. Below Carol and Sandi "slap on the stuff."

Mike and Roger pick up the pieces of a desk to work on. Everything on the shelves is color-coded so the pieces don’t get mixed up.

Jim and Mike get the rest of the desk out.

Here Jim and Roger sand between coats.

Seven of the Poseyville Team were in the workroom. Minie and Helen packed  321 boxes of Personal Dignity Kits. That’s 15 boxes of them, with the help of Mary and Jennifer from Athens, IL, who worked on them just in the afternoon. Minie also ran to the warehouse for supplies and taped, weighed, and marked the 15 boxes to store in the warehouse.

Joan and Vicki cut out one-handled school bags ALL day, going through 3 bolts of upholstery fabric. Their tally was 172 bags cut out!

Marty, Laura, and Joyce spent the morning sewing handles for one-handled Teacher bags which are will go to Haiti. After lunch they began stitching the bags and attaching & reinforcing the handles.

Joan works on cutting handles for the school bags.

Volunteer Coordinator Susan fielded questions during the morning and helped the sewers figure out the Bernina and Viking sewing machines--how to thread them, wind bobbins, go in reverse, and change from straight stitching to zig-zag. For the rest of the day she disassembled bundles of pencils and ink pens into 3 blue/black pens and 3 pencils for student school bags, filling one-and-a-half paper boxes for school bags to be assembled tomorrow.

The sewers completed 15 one-handled Teacher bags. These are the first ones completed by proud Marty and Laura.

Joyce finishes her first Teacher bag. On Tuesday the sewers will complete bags to go with the 21 handles they have already stitched.

Joan and Viki cut out their third bolt of upholstery fabric for one-handled school bags.

MMDC #6 summary of the first week

On Wednesday some of the Michigan group toured the Lincoln sites and some helped at the community kitchen. That means we worked in the warehouse. The first thing I did was sort through buttons—2 quart jars full and a shoe box full—to find 5 to 8 matching in 5/8 to 1 inch size. These will go into sewing kits. And I cut 3-yard lengths of fabric from a 140 yard bolt.

We are doing some really physical work, too. Judy (the caretaker) and I deep-cleaned half of the warehouse. We used a dolly to pull out the pallets loaded with supplies and finished boxes of kits. Then we used a shop vac to clean the rails of the storage bins and vacuum the floor. It was fun using the hydraulic dolly, but it was hard work! Tomorrow Carl will help us move the pallets so we can focus on the vacuuming.

Yesterday and today Carl got to work in the wood shop. However, the miter saw died, and Mark and Dick went out and bought a replacement. Carl has been making pieces for the student school desks.

Carl also is now responsible for going to Chatham and picking up the mail each day. Then he stops at the church on the corner up the road where packages are delivered.

I’ve been getting to sew again. We still have many, many school bags on which to reinforce the handles and finish the inside seams. Also, they’re not always made of sturdy enough fabrics. Upholstery fabric, denim, corduroy, and heavier fabrics are to be used for one-handled teacher bags and two-handled student bags.

My sewing expertise came in handy on Thursday to identify usable fabrics which have been donated. Polyester is out, and wool is not used—only woven fabrics in cotton and poly-cotton blends can be used for girls’ hospital gowns and boys’ hospital shorts. Often fabrics are stained or dirty, and they cannot be washed. There isn’t a lot of donated single-knit cotton T-shirt material for boys’ hospital shirts. That’s something that is really needed. And boys’ sleeveless T-shirts for the hospital are needed more than girls’ hospital gowns. With a ballpoint needle those T-shirt knits are easy to make.

The other day Executive Director Pat sent out 16 patterns that had been requested, so two of the Michigan gals (Sally and Linda) cut out a bunch of patterns. Then they cut more 3-yard lengths from the big bolt of fabric.

Jan and Marty and Chris packaged paperclips. EVERY paper clip must be counted and put into 2-by-3-inch zip bags. Bless their hearts for counting every box to verify that there were 100 paper clips and then filling and marking the zip bags with 50 each. These go into the Haitian teachers’ one-handle bags.

Julie, Don E., Don V., and Dick continued applying polyurethane to the school desks. First they lightly sanded the first coat that they had applied on Tuesday.

Since the Michigan team is going home Friday morning, at the end of Thursday we cleaned the workroom, a task usually completed at the end of the week. That includes wiping down the tables and sign-in counter, sweeping and mopping the floor, cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen area, vacuuming the offices and anti-fatigue floor mats, washing the windows in the entry, resupplying the bathrooms with soap and paper products, restocking the refrigerator with sodas, and emptying the trash.

After the team leaves, it is our job as Volunteer Coordinators to check the dormitory to make sure everything was put away, the refrigerator cleaned, garbage hauled out, and the floors mopped. Good job, Muskegon, Michigan!

On Friday Mark and Dick drove about an hour away for a truckload of donated furniture. Mary and I cut out hospital gowns, using some donated fabric. 

And Carl, bless his heart, spent ALL DAY cutting out 120 one-handled school bags for teachers in Haiti. He used a whole bolt of upholstery fabric. Judy finished vacuuming the warehouse.

MMDC has 2 warehouses. One is heated, and that is where any kits with chemical inside are stored. That includes health kits with toothpaste and flood cleaning buckets with detergent, disinfectant, and bug spray. Those items cannot freeze. The second warehouse is where wood, furniture, hospital machines, sewing machines, and bolts of fabric are stored. The wood shop is in one corner of the second warehouse, and the finishing room is above it. At the back of that warehouse are rooms for school desk assembly, sewing machine repair, and bicycle repair.

Treadle sewing machines are repaired by Harold. Many recipients of these machines in third world countries do not have electricity. Harold brought in the manual found inside one sewing machine cabinet—from 1890, complete with the warranty. The original price was $19.50 from the Demorest Company.

But that is not the oldest machine in the warehouse! Harold showed me one from 1868, although he is not sure he can get it running. It really should be in a museum somewhere if it cannot be used.

MMDC has other regular volunteers who repair bicycles for pastors to ride from one parish to another in foreign countries.

Caretakers Dick and Judy are going to take a couple of days off, so we will welcome the team from Poseyville, Michigan, which comes in on Sunday, and get them started volunteering on Monday.

MMDC #5 -- Muskegon, MI, this is for you!

Previously, I uploaded photos of members of the Muskegon, MI, team who were assembling kits in the workroom. Here are photos of those who were in the warehouse.

Don V. and Julie put desk tops on a drying rack after applying a wood sealer.

Dick applies the polyurethane to framework for student desks.

Don E. lightly sands the first coat before the second coat is applied.

Julie and Don V. apply the second coat of sealer.

Don V. picks up a sealed board to transfer it to the drying rack.

Dick, Don E., and Don V. sand the board for student desks.

Caretaker Dick S. and Julie prepare the sealer.

Don E. gets a board from the drying rack.

Don V. sands the edge of a desk top.

Don E., Don V. and Roger build a student desk.

Don E. watches Don V. assemble a desk.

Don V. and Don E. sit on the first desk that they assembled to test its stability.

Julie and Dick sit in the first desk they built.

Harold the Sewing Machine Repairman and Mark Freeman visit as a load of school desks is picked up with the forklift to load into the truck.

School desks and cleaning bucket kits are already loaded in the truck.

 Mark loads more school desks.

Volunteers gather around to bless the load, the driver, and the recipients.

Mark explains that this load is going to Kenya and Tanzania. We “prayed it out” as it began its journey.

Back in the workroom Linda packs a box with personal dignity kits.

Then she seals the 23 kits inside.

Sally, Jan, Marty, and Chris assemble personal dignity kits. 

Linda packs them into boxes.

Signs like these show the volunteers which items go into each kind of kit. Here is the list for Teacher’s School Bags, which are needed for teachers in Haiti.

Marty, Jan, and Sally assemble layette kits for babies.

Every box that is packed must be weighed and inventoried before it is stored int he warehouse. Warehouse/Clerical Assistant Mary Evermon is getting ready to mark the weight, number of kits inside, and the date packed on the outside of the box.

Every team of volunteers is photographed, and once a month Mary replaces last year’s photos of volunteers with the new ones for this year’s volunteers for that month.

At the table Jan and Marty count out 50 paper clips to put into 2-by-3-inch zip bags for Teacher School Bags. In the background Linda makes patterns for hospital gowns, and Donna sews Student School Bags.

Sally makes patterns for hospital gowns. One day Executive Director Pat Wright had requests for 16 patterns to be mailed!

Linda marks a pattern with instructions before cutting it out.

Linda, February Volunteer Coordinator Susan Jacob, and Sally attempt to put a bolt of fabric on a pole.

Once the pole goes through the bolt of 140 yards of fabric, it will hang below the cutting table. That fabric was used for hospital gowns and 3-yard lengths for sewing kits.

Linda, Susan, and Sally did manage to get the job done!

Mark Freeman, Warehouse Supervisor, and Pat Wright, Executive Director, take a break. Volunteers work from 8:30 to 4:00, but it’s important for them to take a break each morning and afternoon to get to know one another.

Danielle Eaton is the Assistant Director at MMDC.

2012 MMDC Caretakers are Dick and Judy Sena. They were volunteer coordinators for Oct, Nov, Dec, and Jan.

Carl and Susan Jacob are Volunteer Coordinators for the month of February.