Our 2019-2020 Arts & Smarts school year was scheduled to end yesterday with a great big celebration. We were looking forward to it: 100+ children, families, friends, volunteers, and staff. An art exhibit. Awards. Photos of the kids. A picnic supper together. We are very sad that this party was not able to happen […]
The Patchwork Central Food Pantry reopened a few weeks ago. We heard that access to food was a concern in our community, and we decided that reopening the pantry was something we could do. For now, the Patchwork Food Pantry is open on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 am-Noon, and we have rearranged our usual […]
Alan Winslow died Monday, March 30. He was 97 years old. He never considered himself to be a Patchwork Central founder, but he was here from the beginning. There are many great Alan stories. Here’s one as told to me: In the 1980’s during the Cold War, a group of Patchworkers came up with a […]
It hit me when I realized that it was time to unplug Patchwork’s coffeemaker. It’s the commercial kind that is always at the ready with a perpetually heated water reservoir. But for now it doesn’t have to be ready to make coffee. It’s just wasting electricity. I cried. A week ago Thursday, this room had […]
We spend a lot of time talking about “sparks” in Patchwork’s Arts & Smarts Children’s Program, but are the kids really paying attention? In short, sparks are the things that excite and engage someone. Research from the Search Institute shows that when children know what their sparks are and when they have adults in their […]
There was a great party at Patchwork on Tuesday. We didn’t send invitations. We didn’t even know it would be happening ahead of time. But part way through the morning you could just feel it. At first glance, our main room was filled with a very motley crowd. People were drinking coffee and eating some […]
Last week, one boy in our Arts & Smarts Program found Jane Vickers and confided in her, “I found out that coming here helps with my stress.” “How so?” Jane asked. “Because sometimes school doesn’t go so well, but being here makes me happy,” he answered. The boy is a little rough around the edges. […]
You might read homelessness statistics for the Evansville area or you might see a news report about low income people struggling to make ends meet. It’s a different thing, however, to meet people on a daily basis and to learn that they are, in fact, homeless. It’s a different thing to carry on a conversation […]
It’s getting to be cold and flu season again. A man comes in with a hacking cough and feeling like there’s something in his lungs that he just can’t expel. He’s afraid he has pneumonia or maybe something even worse. Nurse John listens to the man’s lungs with a stethoscope. His lungs are clear; it’s […]
“Patchwork Central is one of the random helpers,” a case worker told me as he stopped by last winter to find out if we happened to have an extra-large coat for his homeless client. Coats, kitty litter, slippers, cremation urns, wheelchairs, antacid pills, laptop power cables. If someone is looking for any of this, it’s […]