Needy kids reap what she sews
Published: January 4, 2007
Lola Switzer used to make clothes for her four children, her husband and herself. Now she devotes her time sewing cute, little outfits for disadvantaged children.
“Oh, I have fun!” said Switzer of Mesa, who turns 94 on Tuesday. “I do this for the joy I get out of making them. I like to sew, and it makes me feel good that a child will have at least one new dress or pants a year.”
Switzer began sewing clothes to donate 14 years ago to help out a neighbor who had adopted a family for Christmas and needed extra support. Switzer made three outfits for the family, and has continued the annual donations since.
She spends the year making outfits in her small sewing room, including dresses, T-shirts, jeans, pajamas, vests and sweaters.
The clothes are for boys and girls from infant sizes to about 10 years old.
“That’s the size I like sewing the best,” said Switzer, who also sews for her nine grandchildren and 15 great- grandchildren. “After that age they want to choose their own outfits.”
This past Christmas, she made one of her largest donations.
Her 30 outfits were donated to the Salvation Army’s Christmas Angel program.
“I do this because I want to,” said Switzer, a retired registered nurse from North Dakota. “I do this for something to do. I don’t know what it would be like if I couldn’t do this.”
She’ll begin sewing in February for next Christmas. She starts by buying elastic, some material and thread, and uses new, donated material and other items donated from her neighbors in the mobile home park she lives in.
Items she can’t use are donated to the Boys and Girls Club and the Ugly Quilters program at her church, First United Methodist Church in Mesa.
Switzer decides what outfits to make according to the material she has, and she’s pretty fussy with the way they turn out, she said.
“If it’s a little bit crooked, it has to come out and be redone,” said Switzer, who uses a modern sewing machine and embroidery arm.
Every year before Christmas, Switzer’s handmade children’s clothes are displayed in the mobile home park’s clubhouse along with other donated items.
Residents look forward to seeing what Switzer has been working on all year, said Switzer’s neighbor, Ruth Kalkowski.
“I just really admire her,” Kalkowski said. “I have gotten store-bought clothes that are nowhere near well made as she does. The quality is just impeccable. I do a little sewing myself, but I tell you what, it doesn’t stack up against hers.”
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