Volunteers produce dignity robes at St. Andrew the Apostle
By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
There is a room at St. Andrew the Apostle’s Donora campus that looks a little like Santa’s Workshop, if you swapped toys for fabric.
On the third Friday of every month, from 9 a.m. to noon, it’s much like an assembly line — there are about five tables set up and roughly a dozen volunteers happily moving between stations.
In one spot they’re putting pieces of paper patterns on top of fabric to be pinned; in another they’re cutting and in another they’re ironing the pieces.
They’re keeping the pieces all together so when they reach the sewing machines, the seamstresses can whip together the final product — a dignity robe to be donated to women fighting breast cancer.
The robes are given to either Monongahela Valley Hospital, Jefferson Hospital or the Allegheny Health Network’s new Hempfield Neighborhood Hospital, which houses the AHN Cancer Institute – Hempfield.
Rita Demeter of Carroll Township said she first heard about making dignity robes about six years ago when she read about volunteers from St. Louise de Marillac Church in Upper St. Clair making them.
Demeter and Vera Klein, a fellow founder of the program at St. Andrew, went to St. Louise de Marillac to learn about the program and how to create the robes.
As a breast cancer survivor, Demeter wanted to start the volunteer effort at her church as well.
Demeter works for a doctor, who was the project’s first financial benefactor and helped get the work off the ground. Donations began to come in from various organizations such as the Knights of Columbus or the Elks.
“Little by little it came in and we’re on the road now,” Demeter said. “I enjoy doing it.”
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