The Sew Powerful Booth at the AQS Show in Branson was THE place to be (although we may be a little biased!). Show coordinator, Jan Paul, reported that the booth was always full of people browsing, asking questions, delivering purses, and marveling at the beauty of the displays. “It was a team effort, and God definitely worked out all the details for us!” she reported. “Everything went very smoothly.”

We couldn’t agree more! The booth was beautifully set up, and the gorgeous quilts by our very own Elizabeth Mitman and Leslie Unruh hanging on the center back wall of the booth caught lots of attention. “Our booth was so attractive with that beautiful stitched photo Elizabeth Mitman did. It really drew people in. It could be seen as people came downstairs to the vendor area. It seemed like we always had more people than other booths around us! All the volunteers and I thought it was effort well spent,” Jan commented.

A total of 316 purses were collected during the show, and many attendees promised to carry information back to their guilds, with dozens more interested in forming chapters or just inviting others together to make purses with them. Sew Powerful always welcomes new purse makers!

A big plus was that the attendees at this show seemed to be well educated about the problems girls face in developing countries. Jan explained, “Another thing I noticed that was different from when I did the Paducah show in 2019 was the awareness of the issue of menstrual health management. Before, many women said they were unaware of the problem, but this time most of them would start nodding their heads as soon as I started talking about the supplies that went into the purses.”

The best news was that the crowd seemed particularly eager to hear about the opportunity to make purses for girls in Zambia. “One thing that a couple of the volunteers said when I told them how surprised I was at the number of visitors who were really interested was, “People want to give back.” I think that’s true,” Jan mused. We are delighted with the results and can’t wait to go back to Branson next year!