For longtime seamstress and kindergarten teacher Suzanne Pirtle, teaching a group of 5-year-olds the art of sewing is nothing more than another day’s work.
But Pirtle would never call it that. Instead, she referred to the Gillispie School’s two-month quilting project, which she helped coordinate as part of a service-learning activity, as a labor of love.
“I loved doing it ” just absolutely loved it,” Pirtle said. “It meant a lot, because as they were sewing it, I was looking at each one of them and there was such a sense of love that comes from each child.”
The school’s 33 kindergarten students presented the quilt March 2 to the Polinsky Center, a nonprofit organization that temporarily houses abused, neglected or abandoned children, as a way to offer troubled youth a source of warmth and hope, according to Pirtle and Jeanie Scott, a parent volunteer for the community services program and mother of a Gillispie pupil.
When Pirtle sent out a letter to parents about gathering donations to cover the cost of materials for the project, she was overwhelmed with the response, she said.
Not only did the youngsters generate $120, but they did so by using money solely from their allowances or by scraping together nickels and dimes from piggy banks, she said.
Once under way, the project allowed each student to paint a fabric square with a picture of something that made them feel happy, with the hope it would have a similar effect on children at the center, Pirtle said.
When each patch was completed, the students were carefully instructed on how to hand-stitch them to the quilt. Pirtle then took the project home during the February break and spent her week sewing the entire piece together, Scott said.
“This teacher is so very humble, but there was just an extraordinary amount of energy that she put into this,” Scott said. “The children at the Polinsky Center are in very difficult situations, and it seemed like a perfect match that we could brighten someone’s day. And there was no doubt that with Ms. Pirtle’s experience, this would be a beautiful piece.”
The quilt, which was designed to fit a twin-size bed, was accepted by Carol St. Cook, a manager at the Polinsky Center, and will be placed in a cottage for teenagers.
“Quilts are real special to us because they are handmade and in this case by a number of loving hands of children reaching out to other children, which is extra special,” St. Cook said. “To me, it’s like love and hug because it’s something that they can forever.”
And while youth at the Polinsky Center will continue to benefit from the Gillispie School donation for years to come, the school hopes the lesson that its pupils took away from the experience will last them a lifetime, Pirtle said.
“The children really got it and really understood the depth of the gift,” she said. “I think that’s what the service learning project was all about. The children really had a sense of giving to the community and how important it is to give back.”