“I grew up sewing, I made my first dress when I was 10 years old. It was just a very basic little A-line,” said Kathy Nelson, one of the Mobile Menders volunteers.
Together, they are the mobile menders.
“I heard about it on MPR and I thought, oh, I got to look into this, this sounds like it could get me back into my relationship with my sewing machine,” Nelson said.
They host about ten events each month, and just last year, they repaired about 1,700 different items.
“Shirts, sweaters, curtains,” Nelson said.
They’ve fixed boots, teddy bears, bathrobes, bed sheets, and just about every piece of clothing you can think of. They host regular events at senior apartment buildings, a food shelf, and the Salvation Army’s apartments. Then, they were asked to start coming to the library.
“One of our staff at the Mississippi branch is an avid sewer and so she was looking for ways to get involved in the community and use her talents and skills, and she came across the Mobile Menders group, and she originally just wanted to volunteer with them but them started seeing some of the stuff they were doing around the community and thought, this is a perfect partnership for the library and I’d like to bring them in here,” said Erin Straszewski, the Community Engagement Manager of the Anoka County Library.
Straszewski said that the library’s role is the community isn’t just about books, but about creating a healthy community.
“They also pass along the education and the knowledge, I think that that’s kind of what I pick up from them is just, they’re ready to help in whatever way they can,” Straszewski said.
I absolutely love it and when I tell people I mend for free, they go, ‘mmm?’ But it’s the love of sewing, it’s the love of sharing what I love to do, it’s meeting other people, and you get the stories that we get from people about the things that they’ve got to be mended.” Nelson said. “Sometimes it’s an economic thing sometimes it’s their favorite pair of jeans and they just can’t be without it.
Kathy volunteers at mending events about five times each month, and has realized that what she does can have a lasting impact on a person she helps.
Especially for somebody who doesn’t have a lot of means or is in the middle of a homeless situation,” she said. “This one guy, he needed his backpack repaired because that’s where all of his medication was in, he said ‘this is my life,’ it’s not just mending.
The Mobile Menders always welcome volunteers and donations.
