LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Joyce Boerger says she learned to sew at around nine years old, starting out with dresses in a 4-H program. Now she’s helping to supply hundreds of pillow cases for those in need every year.

“I just enjoy doing it,“ Boerger said. “My proudest moment is I sewed a dress that took a purple at the state fair. I sewed about anything and everything.”

At 81 years old, she’s spent the better part of the last decade taking any extra fabric she can get her hands on and turning it into pillow cases, making around 400 to 600 a year.

And she does it all using the same sewing machine she’s had since 1963.

“I made my oldest son’s baby clothes on it, and I love it,” Boerger said. “It’s the hot dog method, and once you learn to do the hot dog method it goes pretty fast.”

While she started off with a pretty good stash of fabric 10 years ago, she said that friends, family and even members of her hometown church in Wymore have helped to keep her going with supplies.

Her sister Jan and the church’s pastor, Jim, also help by trimming, pinning and pressing each pillow case before it’s donated.

Designs patterns range from animals to flowers to dollar bills, which Boerger says makes the process more fun.

“I make the remark that I’m making pillow cases and people say ‘oh are you making them in white?’” she said. “Long ways away from white. They’re very colorful.”

This holiday season, she’s working with a friend, Tammy Hillis, to donate the pillow cases to places like the Friendship Home. She’s also brought pillow cases to the People’s City mission, supplying the shelter with more than 180 last year.

Hillis said they’ve also branched out to give some to the Orphan Grain Train, Sleep in Heavenly Peace out of Omaha and even Brave Animal Rescue.

Hillis, who runs a south Lincoln gas station and car repair shop, said she got to know Boerger as she brought her car in over the years, before she began offering up pillow cases to donate.

“She would play Christmas music in her car 24/7,” Hillis said. “When she’s got so many it’s like ok we only see so many customers throughout here, so we gotta branch out and help to spread the love.”

Boerger said even after thousands of pillow cases over the years, she isn’t planning to stop sewing any time soon, and will keep supplying them wherever they’re needed.

“It gives me something to do,” she said. “I’ve had them go to hurricane relief, I’ve had them go to, would you believe it an orphanage in Mexico, a foster outlet in Gretna … They just go kind of wherever somebody asks.”

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