July 21, 2000 UNT Inhouse publication: Outreach program teaches sewing skills

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Outreach program teaches sewing skills

Thanks to UNT, residents of the Phoenix Apartments, a public housing complex administered by the Denton Housing Authority, are learning sewing skills that could result in future income.

The sewing group at the Phoenix Apartments is just one of several outreach projects that the UNT Center for Public Service is conducting at low-income apartment communities through its Healthy Neighborhoods program.

In 1997 the center received a $399,692 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the program. In addition to the Phoenix Apartments, the grant supports faculty and student outreach at several apartment complexes and neighborhoods, including the Owsley Addition in Denton, Prairie Estates Townhouses in Grand Prairie and the Near Southeast Community in Fort Worth.

An after-school program administered by the Center for Public Service was already in place at the Phoenix Apartments when David Brackett met with Martha Guerra of the Denton Housing Authority about starting a sewing group. Until recently, Brackett worked at UNT as assistant professor in the School of Visual Arts. Brackett asked the Denton Sewing Center to donate three sewing machines to the apartments, and he and the sewing center each donated fabric. The Center for Public Service took charge of the sewing group and started it in March. It met in a community room in the complex at the same time as the after-school program. This summer, the sewing group meets during the complex's summer camp.

"We want the residents to be confident that while they are sewing their children are being supervised," says Cecilly Gibbs, coordinator of the sewing group. "Some of the ladies already know how to sew but do not have sewing machines available to them. Some have never sewn before. But they're very enthusiastic about learning."

In addition to the donated sewing machines and material, the sewing group received donations from Hancock Fabrics in Denton and the Denton Quilters' Guild. Members of the group began by sewing simple projects such as pillows and place mats but learned enough to make costumes for the Cinco de Mayo parade and to sew clothes for their children, Gibbs says.

The primary language for all of the women is Spanish, which has created an additional learning opportunity, Gibbs says.

"I am learning Spanish from the residents, and they are learning English from me," she says. "Lulu Rodriguez, an employee of the Phoenix Apartments and the Center for Public Service, has been our interpreter. We are also buying Spanish-language sewing patterns."

Martin Jaeckel, director of the Healthy Neighborhoods project, says outreach programs such as the sewing group enrich the lives of residents of low-income housing.

"This is a transient population, and because of that the women usually don't work outside the home," he says. "We want to give them marketable skills that they can take with them wherever they live."

In addition to providing for their families by sewing their children's clothes, the women in the sewing group may eventually sell some of their work at craft fairs, Gibbs says.

She added that the sewing group and other Healthy Neighborhoods outreach projects bring apartment residents together.

"The women may not have known each other when they first started the group, but they know each other now," she says. "We want to help them develop the Phoenix Apartments into a close-knit community."