Reflections on Ten Years of Peace of Thread

 The adage “Time flies when you’re having fun” is true at Peace of Thread.  2022 marks our 10th anniversary!  I celebrated the occasion last year by interviewing our founder, Denise Smith.  Denise recounted Peace of Thread’s origins and reflected on the joys and challenges of our journey from a small gathering of friends to the thriving nonprofit we are today.   

Our beginnings

Unlike a lot of nonprofits, Peace of Thread didn’t start from a business plan. It started from a simple desire to be a friend to women in need.   In summer 2011, Denise was visiting a friend who was running an English camp for Iraqi refugee children in one of the local apartment complexes and met the children’s’ mothers. As Denise explained to Patricia Holt, the author of Empower a Refugee: Peace of Thread and the Backyard Humanity Movement, these women were “lonely but scared.  They had nothing to do and didn’t know who they could trust.” (Holt, location 708).

Denise was in need as well.  She had just returned from Lebanon after seven years of serving as a missionary and was struggling to readjust to life in the United States.   She missed her Lebanese neighbors who had befriended her and wanted to show the same kindness to the women in Clarkston. She started wondering if they could bond by doing something fun together.

Denise brainstormed with a friend and came up with the idea of a nighttime sewing club at the apartment complex.  Denise would bring a blanket, and she and the nine Iraqi refugee women would sit in the brutal Georgia heat, enjoying tea and cookies and talking about their lives in America while they sewed.  It was challenging.  These women had been deeply hurt, and they distrusted one another because they were all from different tribes.     Eventually, though, sewing led to friendship and healing.    “It gave them something to talk about,” Denise explains. “It took all of the stuff they came from and put it aside. They didn’t have to remember what they left or what they had to give up or what they lost.”

As the sewing club went on, Denise started to notice hope blossoming in the refugees’ lives- especially once they started to make laptop and tablet bags to sell.   Denise remembers that one woman danced with joy when she received her first paycheck.  The source of her joy was having money to spend on fashion again.  “She lost all of that when she arrived here as a refugee.  She didn’t have those luxuries anymore.  They were all gone.  That life-she didn’t think she would ever have again,” Denise recalls.  

Seeing how the paycheck brought such happiness and hope to her friend prompted Denise to start thinking of turning her little sewing club into a business.  Then a boutique owner suggested that the women should add straps to their laptop bags and turn them into purses.  The rest is history!  Today Peace of Thread produces purses, wallets, eye glass cases, and even diaper bags.   All these high-end products are made in the United States, and the profits enable refugee women to provide for their families(Peace of Thread website).

Our challenges

What’s the biggest challenge of running Peace of Thread?  Denise says engaging with people from so many different cultures can be difficult.    She and the seamstresses sometimes have different ideas of the “right” way to do something, so it’s easy for misunderstandings and conflicts to arise.    Denise believes that that the best thing to do when such culture clashes occur is accept that differences exist and meet each individualsewer where she’s at.  Since Peace of Thread operates on love and trust, it’s possible for Denise and the women she mentors to forgive each other’s mistakes and continue to have positive relationships. 

Our joys

But if connecting with people from different backgrounds is the greatest challenge of running Peace of Thread, it’s also the greatest joy.  Denise loves the diversity of the world’s many cultures, and she finds her refugee friends to be warm, kind, and hospitable.   “It’s all about the women and getting to know them so well that we can cry together-be belly-laughing together and learning the heart of one another,” she says.  There’s a lot of joy when a stranger becomes a friend. 

The other great joy at Peace of Thread is empowering women to live with dignity and purpose.  Denise says that “hundreds of women” have empowered her in this way, and she enjoys “paying it forward” by teaching her refugee friends what she has learned so they can thrive in the United States.  There’s nothing better than watching a woman find self-confidence and friendship through her work.

What keeps us going

Denise mentions her faith in Jesus Christ as “the foundation” of everything she does.  She finds inspiration in the way that Jesus, as a real flesh-and-blood person, intentionally took time to minister to hurting people in a way that each person could receive.  Denise believes that people of all faiths can learn from Jesus’s example and be a friend to those in need.   Showing Christlike love to others is the heart of everything we do at Peace of Thread, and it energizes us to keep working through all the ups and downs of running a nonprofit.

Our Future

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.  It starts out tiny and grows into a large tree that provides shade for the birds (Mark 4:31-32).  Likewise, Peace of Thread has grownfrom tea and cookies on a blanket to a “female-owned, global accessory brand built on relationships and quality work.” (Peace of Thread website.) We’ve been empowering women for ten years, and Denise believes there are great adventures ahead for us in the next decade! 2021 alone featured an explosion of growth for us!  We started adult classes so that our artisans could learn skills such as defensive driving.  We finished building a playground for the artisans’ children and created an insulated tearoom to showcase their work.  We even promoted one of our artisans to trainer status (Grace Village 2021 Annual Report)!  All these initiatives indicate a bright future for Peace of Thread.

 As we reflect on the journey so far, we remember that we could not have gotten where we are today without a community of supporters behind us.  We are grateful for all you have done for us, and we invite you to celebrate with us at Peace of Thread’s 10th anniversary fundraiser this month.  Details and tickets can be found at https://www.peaceofthread.com/fundraiser  

God bless you and thank you for being part of our story.

Sources

Denise Smith.  Personal interview with the blogger.  July 30, 2021.

Grace Fellowship Church-Snellville.  The Grace Village 2021 Annual Report: Peace of Thread

Holt, Patricia.  Empower a Refugee: Peace of Thread and the Backyard Humanity Movement.  Cune Press: 2020.

Peace of Thread website. By Peace of Thread.https://www.peaceofthread.com/our-mission-1