By: Gordon Williams, American Red Cross Volunteer

When guests arrive at the American Red Cross Northwest Region Hero Awards Dinner in Seattle on May 10, they will find their tables decorated with runners showing the Red Cross emblem. The runners are currently being sewn as a donation to the Red Cross by Deb Wukasch and Linda Fahlgren-Moe.

While Deb isn't enrolled as a Red Cross volunteer, the gift of her sewing services is just another chapter in a lifetime of giving her time and energy to helping others. In one recent weekend, for example, she made desserts for 320 people attending a fundraising event.

“I like to help out where I can,” she said. “My passion is doing things other people don’t want to take on.” 

And the work she is doing for the upcoming Red Cross dinner taps into another of Deb’s passions — sewing.

“Mom and I sewed most of my clothes when I was a girl,” she said.

Deb and friend Linda Fahlgren-Moe love spending their spare hours sewing. They share a mutual friend in Megan Pratt, who is chairperson of the Red Cross Hero Awards dinner, which honors people across Washington and northern Idaho who have saved lives or performed outstanding community service. Megan asked the two if they would like to help the Red Cross by sewing table runners for 31 dinner tables and 11 cocktail tables.

Not only did Deb and Linda agree to lend their seamstress skills to the Red Cross, but they also agreed to supply all the materials at their expense.

“It took an entire bolt and a half of fabric, 22-plus yards,” Deb said.

Deb and Linda’s table runners show a replica of the Red Cross logo. The first one took around two hours to complete. At that rate, making runners for all 42 tables would keep them at work for more than 80 hours — nearly four full days of uninterrupted work. However, Deb is sure that with experience they can speed up the process. 

Deb’s work on the Heroes dinner has her now thinking about signing up as a volunteer. After all, she and her husband aren't strangers to the Red Cross.

“My parents were Red Cross volunteers,” Deb said. “They responded with Red Cross teams to hurricanes in Alabama.” 

Inspired by the work she is doing for the awards dinner in May, Deb says she is likely to support the Red Cross in other ways. Volunteering, she says, is her way of sharing the gifts and talents she has been blessed with. That’s a perfect fit for the Red Cross, where 90 percent of the workforce is volunteers. The job of decorating tables for the awards dinner is taken, but if you're interested in learning more about open volunteer positions, click here.