After the fire: We will match the first $5,000 you give, dollar for dollar

Since we wrote to you about the fire at Sewing for Hope, the question we hear most is how to help. This is how.

Sewing for Hope is a workshop in Kampala, Uganda where refugee women learn a trade and earn an income making handmade goods from local African fabric. We have partnered with them since nearly the beginning of Threads by Nomad. Over the years we have supplied machines and materials for their work, traveled there to teach skill development and business training, and sold what they make.

On October 18, a fire destroyed the workshop, including 12 sewing machines, an overlocking machine, fabric, and tools. The six women who earned their income there are now sewing from home while a temporary space is found.

"We are holding on to hope for what comes next. This is a difficult setback, but it does not change our commitment to helping refugees moving from surviving to thriving." Co-founders of Refuge and Hope International

The Off Ramp has opened a temporary fund called Project Sewing for Hope. We will match, dollar for dollar, the first $5,000 you give. We are putting in $5,000 of our own, so your gifts could bring the total to $10,000.

The fund will go toward getting the women back to work:

• Machines and supplies to restart production

• Recreating the patterns that were lost

• A temporary workspace

• Transportation costs for the seamstresses

• Possible travel to Kampala to help the team regroup and return to designing

To give:

• Online: donate here and type “Project Sewing for Hope” in the message box.

• By check: write “Project Sewing for Hope” on the memo line and mail it to 984 Normandy Way, Rock Hill, SC 29732.

Some of you own something that workshop made. Others of you have been writing to us since the fire. Thank you for being part of getting these women back to work.