Looking for that unique gift for the holidays or other upcoming event? Something handmade and also useful - say, for warming your tortillas or cooking potatoes in a microwave oven, or protecting your iPad from dings and scratches?
Something that also raises money for a good cause - with 100 percent of the money going to that good cause?
Helen Paust has a deal for you.
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The retired nurse, one of the "Sewing Room" volunteers at University Medical Center Brackenridge (UMCB), will make you one of her popular "baked potato bags" that also happens to have other uses, as outlined above. And every cent of the $6 you pay will go toward funding UMCB's new Tranquility Garden, for which ground will be broken during an October 28 ceremony at noon.
Starting a couple years or so ago, Helen's initial goal was to raise $2,000 for a large tree in the new garden to be planted in memory of Howard Slutes, a friend and neighbor whose wife passed away about a decade ago. "All he was doing was sitting at home watching old movies," Helen said, until she convinced him to volunteer at UMCB until he, too, passed away.
So far, she has raised about $2,500, which translates into already having sewed and sold more than 400 baked potato/tortilla/iPad bags. Her Sewing Room colleagues have helped immensely with sales, Helen noted, commenting, "My friends sold more than I did. I just make them and sell some; others are the sales team."
And she's willing - even eager - to sew many more to raise more money for the garden.
"One weekend, I made 40 because I had so many orders to fill," Helen said.
She keeps her costs down by watching for sales and coupons on fabric for the bags, but the most popular are the black bags with red, yellow, green and orange chili peppers on them. That fabric isn't cheap, but Helen said she manages to cover the costs.
"I'm very frugal. I was raised during the Depression, so I know how to spend money carefully," she said.
Some bags are on display and available for immediate purchase in the Volunteer Services office on UMCB's second floor, along the hallway between the valet parking area and the volunteer desk. The office phone number is 324-7584.
Helen also sews comfort pillows, hats, camisoles, shirts, "onesies," quilts, blankets and more for UMCB patients. And with the cost for her friend Howard's memorial tree now covered, Helen wants to sew more bags and raise more money to cover other expenses associated with the new Tranquility Garden.
She mused, "Maybe a bench."
Seton is proud to have four hospitals – the only hospitals in Central Texas - that have earned the