MACON, Ga. – Jean Burton got the idea for her sewing ministry after injuries in a car crash caused her to have to rely on a walker during a lengthy stay in a rehabilitation facility and later an assisted living center.
Burton found no easy way to carry personal items while using a standard walker, and she quickly realized she wasn’t the only one dealing with the inconvenience.
So the 79-year-old got an idea to make small cloth bags that can be easily attached to walkers, allowing people to easily carry Bibles, snacks, cough drops, and other personal items.
Burton, a resident of the Oaks at Lake Wildwood senior living center in Macon, has been enlisting church groups to make the bags as a ministry to people who use walkers.
“Her own need is what got her started on this,” said Karen Pace, a women’s ministry consultant at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. “She was hurt in a car accident and found the bags helpful because she couldn’t reach the basked at the bottom of the walker.”
So far, Pace said Burton “has been instrumental in seeing between 150 and 200 of the bags made and delivered.”
Burton was severely injured in a roll-over accident a couple miles from her home near Oglethorpe.
“They took me out through the windshield,” she said.
Burton spent about two weeks in the hospital before being released to a rehab facility. She spent some five months in a plastic body shell that restricted her movements. It was out of that situation that she realized the importance of the tote bags that are generally 15 inches by 11 inches.
Her home church, Whitewater Baptist Church in Oglethorpe, got involved in the project, providing the bags to about 40 people in the assisted living center.
They’re washable,” Burton said. “You can take them off the walker easily. We made some with buttons and some with Velcro.
“Anybody who can sew can go to a fabric shop and buy economical fabric that won’t shrink and won’t wrinkle,” Burton said. “Anyone can make these bags.”
Burton, a retired businesswoman, is doggedly recruiting churches to get involved so that everyone who would benefit from the bags can have them.
“This is a ministry that anyone can be involved in,” she said.
People who would like to be involved in the ministry can contact Burton at 478-293-3286 or jeanburton3642@gmail.com.