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2022-09-24 06:15:11 By : Mr. Zhaobing Wang

The group originally held what was supposed to be an annual sale in April — the first Fabulous Fabric Frenzy event since the COVID-19 pandemic quashed plans the two years prior, but not public generosity.

A stitch in time is helping a gang of Edmonton grandmas unload a mass of fabrics for a good cause.

The Grandmothers of Alberta for a New Generation (GANG) held a second Fabulous Fabric Frenzy sale for the year on Saturday at Strathearn United Church to raise money for charity.

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The group initially held a sale, which is supposed to be an annual event, in April. It was the first Fabulous Fabric Frenzy since the COVID-19 pandemic quashed similar plans for the two years prior, event coordinator Kate Gale told Postmedia.

The pandemic, however, did nothing to stop public generosity.

Donors have continued to provide the group with clean and new fabrics, along with yarns, notions and the like, but have given so much over the past two years that a single clearinghouse event wasn’t enough to deplete the supplies. 

“We’re hoping that this is the big one that will clean us out,” Gale said of the Saturday sale. “It just piled up and up, and we had to rent extra rooms in order to store it.”

According to GANG’s Facebook page, proceeds from the April sale raised about $35,000 for the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign, an initiative of the Toronto-based Stephen Lewis Foundation that supports African grandmothers caring for children orphaned by AIDS.

“There was a terrible time — when HIV was first starting and rampant — when the middle generation was dying,” Gale said. “So grandmothers found themselves having to gear up and look after orphans.”

The cause is one of the draws for Tammy Boyd, a regular patron of the event. She arrived at 7 a.m., a full two hours before the doors opened. By 8:30 a.m., there were about 20 people waiting in line outside the church.

“The line usually goes around the block,” Boyd said, adding that discount prices also tend to attract crowds. “I get some yarn at a good price, it doesn’t go into the landfill, and grandmas get helped.”

After coming together about 16 years ago, GANG has raised $1.1 million for the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign as of 2021, chair Judy Mill told Postmedia. She said Fabulous Fabric Frenzy sales have raised about a fifth of that sum since the group started the event in 2013.

But GANG was also quick to give credit to donors and patrons.

“We are only able to be successful because of the generosity of citizens,” Gale said. “If they weren’t donating, we couldn’t do it.”

As the group tries to sell off its remaining stock, it’s expecting to put out a call for new donations in October. That will be advertised on its website, edmgrandmothers.org, Gale said.

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