Their faces, names and backgrounds remain a mystery, but they have one thing in common. The preemie babies at Grady Memorial Hospital need blankets and caps.

While the women behind Lenbrook’s Sew What? volunteer program will never meet the babies they knit and quilt for, each year they donate over 200 handmade items so that each feels loved and appreciated during their hospital stay.

Eleanor Calhoun, 89, of Atlanta, is one of ten residents at Lenbrook, a sophisticated Atlanta-based continuing care retirement community, who make up Sew What? For nine years Calhoun has thoughtfully picked out various baby fabrics, anything from a soft plaid to small footprints, and put her 60-year-old Singer to work.

In one year’s time, Calhoun will have made at least 30 baby blankets, “mostly between television commercial breaks,” she says cheerfully. “It takes me about half an hour to make one blanket. So I just stop between programs and work. It feels good to do something that is truly needed.”

She is not alone. Meeting once a month for an hour, the Lenbrook women gather to look over fabric purchases, and then divide and conquer. “We don’t knit and sew together; we like to go up to our apartments and do it on our own time,” volunteer Kathryn Martens said.

As the group’s “Master Knitter,” Martens, originally of Rochester, NY, spends up to six hours knitting each handmade cap. “I always have to be busy, it is just how I am. So this is a great opportunity to do something I love for a great cause,” she said.

Martens learned to knit at 12, after watching her mother teach her older sister. “I caught on really quick. Knitting isn’t difficult; it’s just following instructions. But when you have a great persuader like Eleanor, you knit faster!”

Don’t let the Southern Belle fool you, Martens is right about Eleanor. Having learned how to sew on her grandmother’s Walnut Grove, Ga., farm at the age of eight, she’s passionate and feisty, and hasn’t stopped knitting since. “My grandmother had a sewing machine on the screened-in porch during the summer time, and that’s where I learned how to sew. I’ve been making clothes ever since,” Calhoun says proudly.

Her talent is no secret at Lenbrook. One any given day, Calhoun will open her door to find hanging pants with pins on them, needing to be hemmed. “Residents just drop them off at my door!” she said laughing.

Lenbrook pays for all the fabric and materials Sew What? uses, and delivers the baby blankets and caps to Grady each month. The program launched at Lenbrook back in the late 1990s.

ABOUT LENBROOK
Lenbrook appeals to the active, discerning senior who wants a rich program of amenities and services, along with the convenience, security and continuity of an on-site health center. Its recent $166 million expansion includes 140 spacious residences, three exquisite dining venues, fitness center, indoor swimming pool and three, new state-of-the-art care floors — rehabilitation, memory enhancement and long-term skilled care.

Lenbrook is also the recent recipient of multiple, national interior design awards and a five-year reaccreditation, making Lenbrook the only nationally accredited CCRC in metro Atlanta. Lenbrook, a not-for-profit, is located in Atlanta’s stylish Buckhead neighborhood and first opened to residents in July 1983.

Contact: Rob Forrester, Schroder PR, 404.452.3377, rob@schroderpr.com or Amber Rigsby, Schroder PR, 404.872.7289, ext. 3, amber@schroderpr.com.