Margaret Jankowski founded the Sewing Machine Project to help others rebuild through sewing after disaster struck.

The idea

In 2005, Jankowski read a BBC article about Southeast Asian women whose lives were upended by a tsunami. One woman lost her sewing machine and subsequently her ability to earn a living. As a lifelong sewer, Jankowski felt the woman’s loss dearly. From her home in Madison, Wisconsin, she decided to collect donated sewing machines and send them to people in the affected areas with help from the American Hindu Association. 

Then, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, she shifted her focus to that area, eventually delivering (typically by driving them herself in a rental truck) more than 1,200 machines to people, schools and community centers in greater New Orleans, where recipients use them to rebuild their lives, operate sewing-related businesses and make products for charity.  

“I had not considered making more than one visit to New Orleans,” she writes in her book, Common Threads: Delivering Hope and Meaning Through Sewing Machines. “I thought we would share the machines we had collected and then return home, wrapping up what I thought was a chapter in my life.”

But once she fully understood the devastation in New Orleans, Jankowski felt the tug of something bigger. “I had no idea what would come next, but I knew this wasn’t over,” she writes. “I knew I needed to get back home and find more machines.”

Almost 5,000 machines later, Jankowski is continuing her work as founder and director of the Sewing Machine Project, a non-profit based in Monona, Wisconsin, that collects and distributes sewing machines to groups that teach sewing skills.

Bringing people together

Pa Der Lor, the early childhood and adult program coordinator for the Bayview Foundation in Madison, sees the Sewing Machine Project in action in her community every week. Participants ranging from 30 to 80 years old meet on Thursday mornings, led by a volunteer who loves sewing. “Our group is very diverse,” Lor says. “We have participants who are African American, Southeast Asian, Hispanic, and white.”

The benefits go far beyond learning to thread a machine and wind bobbins. “They enjoy sewing because it is creative, inspiring, and challenging,” she says. “Every time they finish a project, you can see a big, happy smile on their face.”

Younger sewing students have similar reactions, says Carolyn Benforado, a textile artist in Madison. Years ago, she taught middle school students in an after-school program using sewing machines from The Sewing Machine Project. “It was like opening up pots of wonder,” she says. 

Filling a Need

Benforado, who now serves as president of the organization’s eight-member board, explains how the Sewing Machine Project works locally in the Madison area and across the U.S. with organizations like women’s shelters, libraries and community centers to bring sewing, creativity and, in some cases, marketable skills, to those who can benefit. 

The group gladly accepts working machines, mostly from individuals, with Brother also donating machines annually. “We want people to have the machines serviced before they send them,” Jankowski explains. In addition, the group has a team they’ve dubbed their “machinists union” that puts every donated machine through its paces so that recipients aren’t saddled with needed repairs. 

Recipients of donated machines range from hurricane survivors and refugees to students and seniors.

From there, the Sewing Machine Project sifts through applications from nonprofit groups in the U.S. that are able to serve a need either domestically or overseas. They prioritize groups that can use their donated machines to “pay it forward” within their communities. For example, many groups that receive machines and supplies serve seniors in their community by sewing walker aprons, tote bags, or lap blankets. 

Over the years, the Sewing Machine Project has equipped organizations like a Miami-based nonprofit that brings humanitarian aid to Haiti and a group working with youth to explore fashion design and self-expression.

“We have had applications from folks that are incarcerated; women who wanted to sew,” Benforado says. “They were sewing menstrual products for girls, so the girls could continue their education.” Paying it forward was especially meaningful for that prison program, Jankowski says. “To be able to reach outside your current circumstances and do something for someone else was so powerful in that particular situation.” The sewing machines were a simple tool that unlocked abundance. 

A top priority for the Sewing Machine Project’s administration is to be flexible enough to meet current needs that emerge locally and nationally. One of those needs involves people who have newly arrived in the country.

“Every time we’ve sent machines to a refugee resettlement group, and we’ve sent them to many across the country, they always need more than we can provide,” Jankowski says.

Refugees who may already know how to sew find comfort in familiar sewing tasks and can use sewing as a way to learn and teach others English. With the help of donated machines, some new residents have even been able to find work doing costume adjustments and repairs for Disney World.   

In addition to donating machines, the nonprofit also hosts weekly mending services run by volunteers at two Madison-area libraries.  

Sewing machines hold keys to healing

“The notion that sewing machines hold keys to healing is firmly rooted within me,” Jankowski writes.

As a sewer, she understands the joy of creating and the way sewing can bring mindfulness. For Benforado, sewing offers moments to decompress and enjoy mastery of a skill. This dedication to a craft is at the heart of the Sewing Machine Project. 

Decades of planting and renewing sewing skills have offered donors and volunteers a meaningful way to help in the wake of misfortune or difficulties. The organization’s website includes a page that records donations made in honor or memory of a sewer. The ability to give an unwanted machine a second life is inspirational as well, revealing ways that, when carefully nurtured, a simple, utilitarian object can engender hope, support a family, and spark creativity. 

Janice Brewster Weiser

Contributor