TAMPA BAY

COORDINATORS

Jamie Hendrickx
Flora Bradbury

Email: cases4smiles4tampabay@yahoo.com

HOSPITALS

All Children’s John Hopkins
Brandon Regional Medical Center
Lakeland Regional
Ronald McDonald Charities
Sarasota Memorial
South FL Baptist
St. Joe’s Main
St. Joe’s South
St. Joe’s Mease
Tampa General

DROP OFF SITES

Cotton Patch Quilt Shop (8480 Cooper Creek Blvd., Ste. 101, University Park, FL 34201)
Deborah’s Quilt Basket (337 W. Venice Ave, Venice, FL 34285)
Fabric Warehouse (3030 N. Florida Ave, Lakeland, FL 33805)
Inspire! Quilting & Sewing (101 N. Collins St., Plant City, FL 33563)
Keep Me in Stitches (4504 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, FL 33609)
Keep Me in Stitches (10459 Ulmerton Rd., Largo, FL 33771)
The Modern Sewist (2264 Gulf Gate Dr., Sarasota, FL 34231)
Nana’s Quilt Shop (18851 Cortez Blvd., Brooksville, FL 34601)
Quilted Twins (13829 US 98 Bypass. Dade City, FL 33525)
Rainbow’s End Quilt Shoppe (941 Broadway, Dunedin, FL 34698)
Scrap and Sew (16541 Pointe Village Dr., #108, Lutz, FL 33558)
Sweet Darling Quilts (26240 Wesley Chapel Blvd., Lutz, FL 33559)

NEWS & EVENTS

Welcome to our Chapter. We hope you will join us in helping children feel better to heal better.

Sew Days for August 2020

As we all adjust to the new normal, we ask that you follow the guidelines established by the location where you are meeting. We are recommending the following guidelines, however, if the location has stricter requirements, please follow the stricter requirements. We will be meeting with the following changes in place.

Social distancing: Please maintain 6 feet between you and the other people at your sewing location.
Masks: Masks are recommended but not required at events. (Some stores are requesting that you wear a mask. If this is the case, please do so. Also, if you live in a County or City where masks are required indoors, please wear masks indoors.)
We will be disinfecting equipment and surfaces before and after each event. (including pins, rotary cutters, scissors, machines, rulers, etc.)
All pillowcases produced must be held 2 weeks after packaging before delivery. (The current theory is that this is enough time for any virus particles to die.)

August 10: Inspire! Quilting and Sewing Sew Day

Join us at Inspire! Quilting and Sewing (101 N. Collins St. Plant City, FL 33563) on Monday, August 10: 10am-2pm. We will make fun, bright pillowcases to distribute to children in 9 bay area hospitals. Seating is limited to 10 people. Please call the store to reserve your spot (813-704-4867).

August 15: Fabric Warehouse Sew Day

Join us at Fabric Warehouse (3030 N. Florida Ave, Lakeland, FL 33805) on Saturday, August 15: 10am-2pm. We will make fun, bright pillowcases to distribute to children in 9 bay area hospitals.

Videos:

Pillowcase Instructions: From how to cut the fabric to how to finish the case on either a sewing machine or a surger, this video has it all! https://youtu.be/0beMuQUahBA

3 Minute Pillowcase all on a surger featuring our Speed Demon volunteer, Nancy Pridmore: https://youtu.be/HfgC8aFN_Sk

June Video Update: https://youtu.be/YDbF0Hcc-MQ

July Video Update: https://youtu.be/kye8tkfoXYM

State of the Pillowcase Union – August Edition

We have an awesome village! In our June video update, we spoke about having trouble getting fabric to make pillowcases and how we needed people to sew at home for us. In June and July, we received over 160 yards of donated fabric and 400 donated pillowcases! Truly, we have an amazing village! A huge thank you to everyone who has donated fabric, money, and time!

Our need is still very strong as we delivered 1,085 pillowcases to our hospitals in both June and July. You don’t have to be a math major to understand that even with the two sew days we are able to hold each month, our input does not equal our output. We have enough pillowcases in storage to take us through November, but we will run out of cases at our current input/output ratio. We have not been in this position before and quite truthfully, it’s not a comfortable position.

So what do you do when you are in a bind? You are honest with your community and ask for help. We need our village! Please consider sewing pillowcases and taking them to one of our drop off sites or donating fabric.

Thank you all for helping the children feel better to heal better!

Stay safe!

–Jamie and Flo

Ryan’s Team, Tampa Bay

Shops / Locations Update (Alphabetical order):

*Cotton Patch is closed to all walk in traffic, so no sew days yet.

*Fabric Warehouse – Sew Day Aug 15: 10am-2pm

*Inspire! Quilting and Sewing – Sew Day Aug 10: 10am-2pm. Call shop to reserve your seat.

*Libraries – All Hillsborough County Public libraries are still closed to groups.

*Modern Sewist is not holding classes, so no sew days yet.

*Scrap and Sew is not holding classes at this time.

*Sweet Darling – We don’t have anything scheduled this month. We will hopefully start soon.

Hospitals update:

*All Children’s – Accepting Donations

*Brandon Regional Hospital – Accepting Donations

*Lakeland Regional – Accepting Donations

*Plant City Baptist – Accepting Donations

*Sarasota Memorial – Accepting Donations

*St. Joe’s Main – Accepting Donations

*St. Joe’s South – Accepting Donations

*St. Joe’s Mease – Awaiting return call.

*TGH – Accepting donations

So what does this mean?

As you can see, our hospitals are ready for pillowcases, but we have almost no sew days to continue to supply them. Thankfully, we have a backstock in storage that will sustain us until November. But that’s only until November – with almost no pillowcases coming in and no guarantee of our usually, insanely high number of cases in September to sustain us. We also have very few kits available and right now it is difficult to get affordable fabric. Because we did not know how easily COVID was transmitted on surfaces (particularly on fabric), our National organization requested that we refrained from coming in contact with the fabric, pillowcases, or any other packaging material until we had procedures in place or more knowledge of how long the virus lived on fabric. That meant we were unable to cut kits during the downtime from March until now; thus, we have a shortage of kits. The incredible mask making efforts of communities across the country in addition to supply shortages (due to factory shut downs) has resulted in difficulty in finding affordable fabric. We need our village to help us. Please, if you can sew at home and drop off cases to a donation site, we need your help. We have volunteers ready to wash, iron and bag for you, but we need the cases sewn.

Stay healthy, Pillowcase Warriors, we need our village strong!

Want to stay informed of everything that is going on with our Tampa Bay Chapter? Sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page or follow us on Facebook at //www.facebook.com/caseforsmilestampabay/

Ways to help:

Come to a sew day: Bring your sewing machine or serger and a basic sewing kit (thread, scissors, needles, etc.). You don’t have to know how to sew to help at a sew day. We will teach you!! We also need help ironing, bagging, counting, and boxing the cases.
Donate Money for fabric: Monetary donations for pillowcases is always welcome and much needed! There are no paid positions in this organization – we are all volunteers. 100% of the money donated buys fabric for pillowcases. All other supplies are donated. You can donate through the website by clicking the “Donate Now” button in the upper right corner of your screen and choosing “Florida-Tampa Bay” in the “Chapter” field. You can also donate in person at any sew day. If you would like to donate by mail, contact us by email at cases4smiles4tampabay@yahoo.com.
Hold your own sew day! Gather a group of friends, co-workers, church members, neighbors, or other group and hold your own sew day. Need help running it? Have questions? Contact us! We’ll help you! Cases4smiles4tampabay@yahoo.com
Make pillowcases and drop them off at one of the convenient drop off locations. Directions to make a pillowcase can be found here: //caseforsmiles.org/get-involved/#sew Several quilt shops in the area have generously offered to be drop off locations for anyone wishing to contribute pillowcases. Be sure to check the shop’s website for the hours of operation.