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x closeMJ Mayerchak is helping Rebecca Joh to use a sewing machine.
Every Thursday afternoon MJ and other women from Roanoke’s St. James Episcopal Church help Sudanese refugees, like Rebecca, piece together everything from prayer dolls to traditional African clothing.
They make the handmade goods out of African cloth, so their growing collection is quite colorful.
Soon all the items will be online thanks to some Virginia Tech business students who have created a website for them to sell their goods.
“The website is really a way for them to tell their story and offer people a way to kind of be part of that story too by donating or purchasing the things that they've made here in the sewing group,” explained Dan Nemes, Virginia Tech Program Coordinator for the Coalition for Refugee Resettlement.
The money raised from the things the Sudanese women have made will be sent back to South Sudan to help pay for schools and hospitals.
Nemes helped form this partnership.
“I did suggest the internet might be a great place for you to sell all this, because they get together every week and they sew, so they have all this stuff that they've made and not necessarily too many opportunities to sell it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Susan Bentley is the priest at St. James and she says the women felt very strongly about where to send the money raised.
“It is critically important to be able to help in their villages at home. We decided we would send not to the cities which seem to have more resources and are doing better, but support women and children in the villages, in their local villages,” Bentley said.
The Sudanese refugees are thousands of miles away from home, sitting in a church in their new hometown, but making a difference with every stitch and click of a mouse.
If you would like to buy any of the items they’ve made, they will be set up this weekend at Local Colors.
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