Are you stitching? If so, you are one of our global team of 2000-strong artists and activists whose every stitch brings awareness to the plight of the 25 million refugees around the globe today.
You inspire us with the many creative ways you are deeply engaged with and sharing the project, as art / activism, as therapeutic meditation, as opportunities for teaching and learning, and so much more.
As we have said before, 25 Million Stitches is a BIG number which challenges and galvanizes us to grow our worldwide host of stitchers.
Will you please promote this project with your friends and family who will share your Thanksgiving table? And with everyone you know.
You can tell them stories of organizers from around the world who constantly inspire us with the outpouring of goodwill and their beautiful handstitched panels. Let us tell you about a few of these stories.
In an effort to create an oasis of support for the refugees in Montana, last September Maggy R Hiltner, from Red Lodge, put together a 25 Million Stitches show at a local café. Although Red Lodge is a small town of 2500 residents, the show made a powerful statement of support. Maggie’s circle included 25 stitchers from 12 different states across the country from Florida to California.
Rasma Noreikyte organized a sewing event/workshop at her college, Aiste in Lithuania, and created a European site for the 25 Million Stitches project as well as an event/seminar platform in Kaunas, European Capital of Culture 2022, Each week Rasma, Tofi and organizers present the 25 Million Stitches project to different communities including local schools, neighborhoods and town meetings. They draw crowds through social media announcements and hold sewing circles. Tofi writes “I show some slides and we ask them to participate and be part of your big plan (25 Million Stitches). And we ask them to think about the times when Lithuania had lost independence, how our people had to leave their homes...” They plan on a local installation of the 25 Million Stitches in Lithuania in January of 2020 before shipping the panels to Sacramento for the June installation.
Over 50 students from the Cornell University Museum Club expressed their support of the refugees in creative responses to the current art show, “How the Light Gets In” by international rock star artists at the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell. The show highlights the movement of people across the globe and examines our notions of borders and nation states.
In Vancouver BC, Dawn and Yoo Mi organized a stitch-in at the “Paradise Has Many Gates” installation at Vanier Park. This chain-link structure in the shape of a mosque is part of the Vancouver Biennale. Dawn says that “It seemed like an appropriate setting for a (25 Million Stitches) project intended to bring attention to the global refugee crisis…” This event also featured Lois Klassen, who read the Migrant Library project, and Radiant Heart Song Sisters who shared singing and chanting. Klassen later organized another sewing circle in Saskatchewan, Canada at her Slofemist event.
The refugees receiving help with resettlement through the Arc Project Blackburn in the UK joined the project with much enthusiasm. Stitching together for the 25 Million Stitches has become a group event that helps different groups of refugees socialize and share their resettlement experiences as well as talk about the home and people they left behind.
Many textile art organizations and museums have supported 25 Million Stitches by sharing the project with their wide audiences, including Fiber Arts Now, Surface Design Association, and Embroider’s Guild UK. We thank Museum of Northern California Arts in Chico, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, and San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles who hosted or will host the sewing circles for the 25 Million projects in the early part of 2020.
Please promote 25 Million Stitches by organizing your own sewing circles. They can be as small as three people or as large as an activity for a church or other community group, and can be recurring or onetime events. Your groups will be an epicenter for radiating influence of community engagement.
Please continue to share the images of your panels while you are stitching and your completed panels on social media: #25millionstitches, #25millionstitchesproject
https://www.facebook.com/25millionstitches/?modal=composer
https://www.instagram.com/25millionstitches/https://www.instagram.com/25millionstitches/
October Newsletter: Are you stitching?
Are you stitching? The 25 Million Stitches COMMUNITY ART PROJECT brings awareness of the immensity of the refugee crisis through a single striking fiber arts display and we can’t do it without your participation! 25 Million Stitches is a BIG number, which is the idea—what does this look like? It requires a lot of hands!! With only a month to go until the Thanksgiving holidays, we’d love you to focus on your stitching. Have your friends join our community too!
BUT PLEASE ADD 25millionstitches@gmail.com to YOUR ADDRESS BOOK so that you can receive the updates on the project. We found that our group emails are being dumped to your spam folder if this gmail address is not added to your address book.
This Newsletter reports on stories from inspirational educators who are incorporating the project into their curriculum. We are uplifted through their efforts to use the project as a vehicle for education, discussion, and expression—all while producing beautiful panels to be incorporated into our final display.
Mrs. Donna Marie Burden, an art teacher from Our Lady of Providence High School in Clarksville, Indiana has adopted 25 Million Stitches as part of an art/religion(civics) curriculum (100 panels) for 5 different levels of classes and courses. Students discuss topics ranging from: how the arts can help inspire others to help, how art raises awareness of the Refugee crisis, and how they can apply the knowledge they gained to their artwork (panel design). The students at Our Lady of Providence also shared the project at a number of elementary school events to use the project as an opportunity to teach about refugees. Ms. Burden says, “My goal at our school is that EVERYONE (about 400 students) will stitch on a panel before we send them all back! We are also going to take panels with us to community events and invite people to stitch with us as we tell them about the collaboration.”
Jodi Colella, who teaches at a private school for girls, will be taking on the 25 Million Stitches project to instruct a leadership curriculum in a social issues arena. Ms. Colella writes, “I see this stitching project as the perfect vehicle for them to talk with each other about their social issue of choice, by sharing facts, raising awareness, and all while expressing it in stitches!”
Sveta Nikitina Kim, a teacher from Saint George School in Dominican Republic, shared how stitching for the 25 Million Stitches project was educational for her students. For most students, it was their first time learning about refugees and the difficulties they face. Her students immediately understood the refugees’ need for our support and wanted to help. Many of her third graders gave up their recess to stitch for a week. What a touching donation on their part!
A handful of families in Chico have become artists/activists. They gather every weekend on their lawns making butterflies for the Butterfly Effect Migration project, each butterfly representing a child separated and detained at the US/Mexico border. These families are also stitching for the 25 Million Stitches Project and raising awareness about the refugee crisis.
Four grades from Alice Birney Waldorf school in Sacramento collaborated with us and stitched 12 amazing panels. Our youngest stitcher may be a kindergartener from San Francisco, Aadi Korah.
If you lead a youth group, or religious or activism group or are a scout leader for the girl and/or boy scouts, for example, please consider adopting this project for your members. For me, the project has been like a continual Christmas-- opening the returned hand worked panels each day and seeing each unique tangible and personal expression of the people choosing to be a part of this community project brings me joy and inspires me to keep working to bring them all together.
Here are links to some media coverage about the project for you to browse:
https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/sewing-discourse/content?oid=28583799
Please don’t forget to share the images of your panel while you are stitching as well as your completed panels on social media!
https://www.facebook.com/25millionstitches/?modal=composer
https://www.instagram.com/25millionstitches/https://www.instagram.com/25millionstitches/
Happy Stitching,
Jennifer and Team
25 Million Stitches: One for each Refugee
Community Art Installation for the awareness of and support for
Refugees across the globe