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Herald Tribune October 4, 2005
BY ANN HENDERSON CORRESPONDENT
Janet Walker, Carol Vealey-Ellis, Karen O'Connell and Dolores Travers hug the new huggable pillows they made for Fawcett Memorial Hospital patients.
Huggable pillows help comfort patients
A dozen women sat and watched as computerized sewing machines embroidered "Made with love" automatically on the huggable pillows they were making for surgery patients at Fawcett Memorial Hospital.
"When patients come out of surgery, they want something soft to hug," said Janet Walker, coordinator for volunteers at Fawcett Memorial Hospital.
"Carol (Vealey-Ellis) called me and asked me if there was something she and her class members could do to help," Walker said. "I didn't hesitate to tell her that we could sure use huggie pillows," Walker said. "From that moment on, she adopted us."
Vealey-Ellis, of the Stitch Connection in Murdock, was thrilled with the opportunity to do something for the hospital. Last year, she and her students at the Stitch Connection volunteered to make quilts for the YMCA kids when Hurricane Charley destroyed their blankets. Vealey-Ellis donated all the materials and the Viking sewing machines to make the quilts, just as she did this year for the pillows.
"It makes me feel good to do something good for someone else," she said.
It was an odd scene to watch. No longer do women have to sew. They have to know how to set the computer on their sewing machine to do the sewing for them. When that program is completed, they set the machine for another programmable stitch and just guide the material. Sometimes they don't even have to do that.
The session started at 10 a.m. and ended around 4 p.m. The goal was to make 100 pillows.
"Some of my volunteers worked 15 minutes, and some worked four hours," Vealey-Ellis noted. "I was just delighted to have them help for whatever time they could give."
Faye Tiffany said she was there because she believes it's important to give back to the community.
"When I had open-heart surgery, they gave me a teddy bear to hug," Tiffany said. "I really needed that teddy bear. That's a very painful surgery, and I was glad to have something to hug."
Ditto for Dolores Travers.
"My daughter has had cancer twice," Travers said. "We all need something to hug when we hurt or when we are scared. I think the pillows are a great idea."
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