Person of the Week: Ginger Dosedel

March 23, 2007 — -- Ginger Dosedel started sewing for her son Michael when he had cancer as a young boy, because he frequently wore casts or large metal braces on his legs, and regular clothes didn't fit.

Dosedel designed what she called "adaptive clothes" to accommodate the devices and realized wounded soldiers would also benefit from customized shirts and pants.

"Even as a military spouse, I had no concept of the number of wounded [who] would return from Iraq and Afghanistan," she said.

In response, Dosedel and her friend Michele Cuppy started an organization called Sew Much Comfort to make adaptive clothes to cater to the needs of those who can't fit into regular shirts or pants.

For example, to make a shirt more accessible for a wounded veteran, they rip out the side seam, insert Velcro, and a burn victim doesn't have to pull on the shirt over tender skin.

"The burn patients for me are very emotional, because it's a hard injury and involves a lot of suffering," Dosedel said.

"It's a very personal thing, sewing for someone," she added. "You give a lot of yourself to that effort, and I don't think you can give that much of yourself and not have it touch you."

One wounded soldier, Marine Michael Blair, said the clothing aided his hospital recovery as he traded a hospital gown for Dosedel's creation.

"You don't walk around with your butt hanging out of a hospital gown whenever you're walking around the hospital," he said. "It got me to a level of learning how to dress again."

'Something I Can Do for Them'

Doesdel recruited sewing volunteers from across the country, including inmates at a minimum security prison in Irvine, Calif.

"They put their lives on the line for us for no reason," said inmate Tammy Daniels. "They don't know me. They have no idea who I am, but they do it for me. So it is something I can do for them."

"People want to support the service members," Dosedel said.

And, she adds, they can support them without addressing the politics of the war with an effort like this one. "That is, help those who are wounded return to normalcy and be in comfort and dignity."

And the effort is strong -- she estimates by the end of 2007, they will have made 30,000 pieces of adaptive clothing and keep sewing as long as the items are needed by veterans.

"We'll continue Sew Much Comfort until either we're out of Iraq and Afghanistan, or we don't have the means to continue," Dosedel said. "I'm sure the volunteers aren't going to let us stop before then. They are very dedicated to the troops."

For more information: www.sewmuchcomfort.org