For our December Community Outreach project, our member volunteers collaborated with a local women-owned business in support of Ryan’s Case for Smiles. Ryan’s Case for Smiles is a locally-established charitable organization that aims to bring comfort to children and families who are undergoing treatment for cancer or other illnesses requiring hospitalization. The organization was formed in Wayne when a local 12-year-old was diagnosed with cancer and his mother wanted to brighten his hospital stays with a brightly-colored pillowcase. Over the years, the organization has grown to support over 120 chapters across the United States and Canada, with over 362 hospitals participating in the program.
Providing brightly-colored or patterned pillowcases to children in local hospitals, the organization is on a mission to help children “feel better to heal better”. Our local chapter provides pillowcases to seven facilities in our region, including local children’s hospitals, NICU Units, a transitional care organization and the Ronald McDonald House.
On December 16th, the member volunteers of The Saturday Club worked together to collect, measure, cut and sew pillowcases to be donated to Ryan’s Case and distributed to local hospitals. Working in two shifts, the first group of members met at the clubhouse in the morning to organize, measure and cut fabric to size.
The second group met in the evening at Christine Shirley Design Studio in downtown Wayne to sew the pillowcases under the guidance of Jorja Mathers and owner Paige Sullivan. The evening shift took turns pinning the fabric and stitching together the pillowcases at their sewing machines while enjoying Christine Shirley’s monthly pop-up shopping event. After our evening of sewing, two of our members offered their personal time to finish sewing the remaining material into pillowcases.
Collaboratively, our members were able to create 46 pillowcases to be donated to our local Ryan’s Case for Smiles chapter, which will then be distributed to local hospital partners.
We are so thankful to the team at Christine Shirley for donating their time, materials and sewing machines to make this event a huge success. Visit them at 104 E Lancaster Avenue, Wayne, PA 19087 or online. To learn more about Ryan’s Case for Smiles, or to support their mission further, please check out their site.
