Shoe-box Rescue kits

 Can you imagine not even owning a needle, or threads , or even replacement buttons to make repairs to your family's clothes?

Can you imagine the desolation of knowing that  your much loved stash of fabrics (dress making and quilting)

 your threads ( sewing and embroidery)
Your scissors
pins , quilting and embroidery frames etc
are all smothered in foul smelling mud.....
How would you feel?

I am a volunteer with CONNECTED, a Brisbane based charity that rose from the discovering of a NEED to assist other charities at "ground zero" at a time of floods and disasters.
 During the eighteen months since the January 2011 floods  Connected has worked with the larger charities by processing the overflow of donations that were given by the generousity of the Australian people.
Connected works out of an industrial shed on St Vincent's Road ,Banyo, sorting,packing and arranging transport o necessary goods to stricken areas.

About a week ago, as I worked in the" Shed" my thoughts drifted back to the big floods of 1990/91 out Charleville way, and how quilters in south east Queensland banded together to remind their quilting sisters in the flooded areas that the had not been forgotten by collecting fabrics, needles and thread and dispatching them to the affected towns.

I thought of using  shoe boxes and filling them  with basic sewing equipment,plus some fabrics and  embroidery threads, safety pins, maybe a magazine and a chocolate bar! Something to say to the women  "You're not alone"
Sure they won't have time for the frivolity  ofembroidering, or even have time or the energy to read a magazine when there is so much to do .But the time will come....

WHY a shoe box? It's a handy size, AND they can be added to the pallets of goods going out to these flood affected areas easily, that's why!

Craig Michaels of Connected will make sure that the recue kits will be distributed along with the other relief supplies.
To lessen the extra "chaos"in the Shed I will use my home as a drop-off point, and do basic sorting and packing here before taking it to the Shed.

Did I mention that Connected is staffed completely by volunteers? We get NO funding from any government agency, but we have many wonderful supporters.
Can you help?