St. Gianna Sewing Guild
If you can sew, knit or crochet, the St. Gianna Sewing Guild ministry might be for you. You can work at your own pace on your own time.
St. Gianna Sewing Guild
(Helping Families Heal... Named after St. Gianna Beretta Molla, patron saint for life, born in 1922.)
St. Gianna Sewing Guild is a wonderful ministry that is comprised of volunteers from several parishes in our Diocese who are able to sew, knit or crochet. Volunteers give the gift of time and talent by donating the materials and labor to create simple gowns, bonnets or caps, blankets and burial pouches (patterns provided) which can be left plain or embellished as desired.
Currently, the St. Gianna Sewing Guild provides gift boxes to St. Francis Hospital, St. John Hospital and Hillcrest Hospital.
The beauty of this ministry is that we are able to serve the Lord by using our God-given talents to help make a difference in the lives of families experiencing a significant loss. Parents facing the death of an infant through miscarriage, stillbirth or death at or shortly after birth receive a "gift box". Currently, we provide gift boxes containing two identical gowns or pouches (the baby is buried in one and the family keeps the other), a bonnet or knitted cap, a blanket and a prayer for healing to the perinatal nurses at the hospitals. The nurses add plaster footprints and handprints of the babies and the boxes are given to the grieving families for the burial of their little angels who didn’t survive.
These gift boxes are a way of expressing God’s love through our sewing, knitting or crocheting skills, silently saying, “Someone cares about your loss.” Through this ministry we can learn that the loss of an infant leaves a mother and her family in need of being nurtured and it is important to put a closure to this loss. We can’t change what happens to these little babies, but we can make a difference by reaching out to those families at a heart-breaking time in their lives. Our hope is that our gifts help to soften their loss in some small way. Most mothers will keep the extra gown or burial pouch and the bonnet or blanket as a reminder of their little one. It enables them to find comfort in their loss and begin the healing process.
Anyone at the Church of St. Mary is welcome to be a part of our ministry. "…that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." (2 Corinthians 1:4)
For more information, please contact Kelly Wilhelm, St. Mary's coordinator for St. Gianna.
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