Our Story

Many of you have followed our journey since 2012 when Sew Loved began in a community center with just a few volunteers who met with the marginalized and underserved women in that inner-city neighborhood. We shared our love of sewing and quilting with them and discovered that as their self-esteem and accomplishments grew, positive and dramatic changes took place in their lives.

The program grew rapidly and by late 2014 Sew Loved had achieved 501©3 status and rented our own facility. We started a ‘learn to sew’ class for high school girls and opened it to the at-risk teen girls from the Crossing Education’s South Bend campus. Our hearts broke as these girls shared their stories of generational poverty, illiteracy, addiction, family dysfunction, and abandonment as well as physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.

Working with these young ladies soon convinced us they and teen boys needed to receive job training to increase their chances for self-sufficiency after graduation. After all, how can we expect them to change the trajectory of their lives if we, as members of their community, don’t offer them a way out of their hopelessness?

Around this same time Sew Loved was asked by local partners and industry leaders to launch an industrial sewing training program. Manufacturers in Elkhart and Saint Joseph counties regularly turn away work because they can’t find skilled workers to fill their 1,000 – 2,000 open industrial sewing positions. We realized an industrial sewing training program was what we needed to pursue, but our facility was both too small and unsuitable for this type of program.

It took six months to find the right place, but Sew Loved moved into a new home as of March 2018 through a community partnership at Vested Interest. Vested Interest is an incubator space generously developed by the Ziker family with emphasis placed on providing economical space for small businesses geared toward education and job training. Check out the local news story with details and video about the Vested Interest incubator space at www.wndu.com/content/news/Ziker-family–459152863.html.

TheSewingLab came into existence as Sew Loved joined forces with

Vested Interest
Goodwill Industries
Crossing Education
Work One
City of South Bend
St Joe County Bridges Out of Poverty

…and more local partners to develop and provide the industrial sewing training school.

Volunteer With Us

The Sewing Lab and Sew Loved welcome area ladies who are interested in volunteering as teachers and personal mentors. We look for women of character that are interested in being good role models and friends to the students we serve. Sewing/quilting skills or Industrial sewing experience are desired but not a necessity to serve in our programs. Please contact us for more information.

Location

Sew Loved Women’s Center and The Sewing Lab
251 E Sample St, STE 100
South Bend, IN. 46601