Since it began in 2008, the St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center’s Commercial Sewing Social Enterprise Program has hired and trained dozens of professional sewers and seamstresses who have made thousands of garments including scrubs and lab coats, custom embroidery, specialty items, designer aprons, stadium blankets, and more.
St. Luke has a longtime and thriving partnership with Michigan-based brand Stormy Kromer, producing more than 300 custom vests per month for the company. They make custom mammography gowns for Regional Medical Imaging. They make special teddy bears for the Teddy Bear Patrol, an organization that works with first responders in Genesee County to deliver teddy bears to kids in distressed situations. They also have a contract with the Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth. A wide range of custom St. Luke-produced products can be seen all over the Flint area and beyond, most with a special tag identifying the items as made at St. Luke.
That program’s growth is even more impressive considering it was done in a space in their Lawndale Avenue facility that it had been outgrowing. That won’t be an issue moving forward, though, as a new renovated space that will house the industrial sewing program and other social enterprises was unveiled at 3070 Pierson Road on October 8.
“We first opened the doors at the center in September of 2002, and our vision then was to simply walk with families alongside them in their most difficult time,” said Sister Carol Weber, co-founder and executive director of St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center. “This new facility brings that vision to life in ways that we never ever dreamed. It empowers individuals with dignity, skills, and the ability to work.”
In addition to the sewing program, the space will house the center’s lawn and snow maintenance program. Weber said the name ‘Lawn Care Enterprise’ was specifically chosen to honor St. Luke co-founder Sister Judy Blake, who died in 2022. A garage area that houses lawn and snow equipment and yard tools also has a plaque honoring Blake on display.
“She began the training for the men and she said yes, she believed in them,” Weber said. “She believed in them before they believed in themselves. When you have someone like that (rooting for you), anything is possible.”
The lawn and snow program began in 2020, with employees in the program providing lawn care services to several residents and businesses, including senior citizens. Through Genesee County’s Senior Services Millage, St. Luke lawn and snow workers maintain yards for several seniors throughout the year. Employees took care of more than 100 acres of land in Genesee County last year.
St. Luke provides a wide range of social support and job training services for people in the community. In addition to the sewing and lawn care social enterprises, they serve about 330 families per month through a food pantry, literacy programs, an eye clinic, childcare, crisis intervention, and more. A yearly baby shower provides essentials to about 100 expectant mothers, and last year alone nearly 200 people participated in the employment preparation program. Weber noted during her remarks at the unveiling of the new facility that many people now working in the employment preparation and social enterprise programs learned about St. Luke through other services they initially sought help for through the center.
The building, which was previously a muffler shop and had been vacant before St. Luke was able to purchase and renovate it, will now house social enterprises that employ nine people in the sewing program and 12 lawn care workers.
“A social enterprise business for us means it’s training,” Weber said. “So we use our businesses to train men and women so that we can empower them even more to go out into the world and hold a good job.”
One local beneficiary of the center’s social enterprise and job training programs has been the Ruth Mott Foundation. The foundation contracts with St. Luke’s lawn care social enterprise for mowing at Applewood Estate and two individuals from St. Luke’s job training program are part of the horticulture team at Applewood.
The foundation, which has a place-based focus on north Flint, has provided 10 years of annual grants to St. Luke for its social enterprise operations and recently made a program-related investment in the form of a $300,000 low-interest loan to complete renovations in the new building.
“We’ve heard north Flint residents say they value pathways to employment and spaces where community members feel supported, and St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center is a model of those principles in action,” said Raquel Thueme, president of the Ruth Mott Foundation. “This expansion not only helps revitalize this business corridor but also helps connect more people with the training and job experience they need to thrive.”
The Lawndale facility, located at 3115 Lawndale Avenue, will remain open as well, with St. Luke’s other services continuing there. The social enterprise programs moving to a new location also offers room for other initiatives to grow in the old space.
“Our center on Lawndale is going to continue,” Weber said. “We’ll provide the food pantry as usual, literacy, our eye clinic, clothing distribution, employment prep, and job training programs and programs for women in trauma. We’re planning an exciting expansion of training at that facility for skilled trades. When we moved sewing out of there, there was a big space, but we already knew what was going to go in there because of the need (for more skilled trades programming). So skilled trades in our employment preparation program will continue and grow in that facility.”
St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center was founded by Weber and Blake in 2022. It grew out of a street ministry that began by providing food, clothing, household items, and homemade cookies. Their consistent expansion of services they provide came from a desire to do more to serve the community, particularly their home on the northside of Flint.
“We choose to be in the north end,” Weber said. “We choose to be here among the people that we know need us and deserve it.”
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