Local Women Provide Kits For Children Around World

As we head into this “season of giving,” a group of women at First Lutheran Church has made giving a year-long activity for many years.

The Patience and Peace Circle of the church work through Lutheran World Relief to send baby care kits and school kits to children around the world.

Bertha Karge, a member of the circle, noted that a $250 grant from Thrivent makes the donation of the school kits possible.

She said the group puts together about 50 of the school kits together each year. Included in the backpacks are notebooks, crayons, a ruler, pencil sharpener, pair of blunt scissors, five pencils, five pens and an eraser.

The items are shipped in the spring.

The baby care kits feature cotton T-shirts, gowns/sleepers, two receiving blankets, four cloth diapers, a jacket, a pair of socks, a hand towel and bars of soap.

Karge makes the gowns out of materials from other projects. The church’s women’s quilt group also provide their talents to supply small quilts for the baby care kits.

“We try to get the whole circle involved,” she said. “All of this is done with donations.”

They also purchase T-shirts from the Catholic church’s sales and transform them into cloth diapers.

Karge thanks the Catholic church for its assistance by making items affordable and available.

Lutheran World Relief sends the kits to 24 countries. The total donations from all contributions amount to $13.2 million and there are 581,456 beneficiaries.

“I just try to keep them organized,” Karge said of her role with the effort in Wolf Point. “Really, the girls do all the work.”

A new project for the circle is providing materials for children who are taken into the care of Family and Child Services without time to gather many of their needed comforts.

The circle meets once a month to work on the projects, hold a

Bible study and a business update.

“And, of course, we have to have lunch,” Karge laughed.