Workshop Guides to assist elderly, blind, disabled to craft and sew projects using Mitsy Kits

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The Mitsy Kit provides adaptive materials and training to enable participants to enjoy hand sewing, quilting, and fabric crafting using an easy to use process in a group setting. Our adaptive kit was initially designed to help the blind and visually impaired to sew and quilt using their sense of touch in place of sight. However, we have found that even those who are sighted love the Mitsy Kit for its ease of use, group interaction, and quick / quality results. This has resulted in our expansion in facilities who support the elderly, memory impaired, as well as centers for the blind and visually impaired.

Born from a daughter and mother story, the kit came to life to enable Mitsy, a former seamstress who lost her sight in her eighties, to enjoy sewing again.

Tactile and packaging cues provide guidance for correct ordering and directionality of pieces to achieve desired patterns.

The goal of the Mitsy Kit is to provide the opportunity for people of all abilities to enjoy creating beautiful, hand sewn and quilted products with both visual and tactile appeal.

· Volunteers are essential to enable our mission, ensure sustainability, and to help build upon community awareness and engagement.

· Workshop Guides are needed to support our community-based workshops in the greater Lowell area. Workshops generally run 2 hours in duration, and occur twice per month at each facility. This is a tremendously rewarding opportunity providing hands-on community service experience with the elderly, blind, visually impaired and disabled community in the greater Lowell and surrounding areas.

· The basic role involves assisting the workshop participants as they learn how to use the sewing tools and quilting kits. Free training will be provided requiring about 2 hours of time prior to scheduled workshops.

· Prior experience with basic sewing skills is helpful (threading a needle and basic hand stitching) but not critical, and there is no need for prior quilting experience. We can train those who are willing to learn!

*Excellent opportunity for students, recent graduates, and retirees in social services, occupational therapy, teaching, or pca fields

*Your own transportation is needed to travel to facilities where workshops are located, in the greater Lowell area.

Please contact Tammy Roussell at Tammy.Roussell@MitsyKit.org if you are interested in learning more or to sign up to volunteer for one or more of our workshops.