A Piece of My Heart

By Rita Alexander—Garland Texas

I want to help others. We all feel that…we all intend to do that. Yet, for many of us, we are so embroiled in the day-to-day process of just living that we put off our philanthropic endeavors for a more convenient time.

Sadly, I am guilty of procrastinating and letting tomorrow become years later without realizing it. Another way to miss out on the opportunity to give of our talents and abilities is thinking that we can’t do enough to really make a difference. “If I can’t do it in a big way, then it won’t really be all that helpful.”

Sew Powerful gives everyone with any sewing ability the opportunity to make an impact. Whether your budget allows for making many purses or just one, that one will impact one young girl’s life in such a positive way.

Although I could not participate in a big way, I was able to send two purses. While making these two purses, I was filled with joy, picturing the faces of the two young girls who will carry the purses that I took the time to make. I felt a bond with two persons whom I shall never meet, but that bond and the process of making the purses gave me a gift at a time when I desperately needed to feel connected to something and someone again.

Even though I have been unable to work and am currently living on a tiny fixed income, I felt that I mattered again, that I can still make a difference!

Certainly this extraordinary program is all about bettering the circumstances of a community in a far-off place that I will never see, but it has made a profound difference in my life as well.

Who knew when I began sewing at nine years of age that someday I would employ this skill in such a meaningful way? I will continue to be involved in whatever way that I am able, and commend and bless the persons who were led to bring such monumental change to those so in need and deserving of loving support.

I included this poem with the purses that I made:

Hello, Little One, far across the sea!

This little purse is stitched with love, a gift to you from me.

Oh, we shall never meet in person, it’s true.

But now there’s a piece of my heart that
you will carry with you.

It looks like a little purse, this little piece of heart
that I stitched with you in mind.

Of course, a heart can come in many shapes and kind.

Fill this little piece of heart with wondrous
things and special dreams.

Fill it with happiness till it‘s bursting at the seams!

Enjoy your purse, my little one, and know that every day

Someone will think of you from far, far away.