EXETER — “Another one done!” 16-year-old Matt Crawford said, triumphantly holding aloft a “Joey pouch” — one of 66 he and fellow students at Wyoming Area Secondary Center, many of them members of the quilting club, have finished over the past two weeks.
The Joey pouches, crafted from all-cotton fabric, will be sent to Australia to help “Joeys,” or baby marsupials like kangaroos and koalas that have been orphaned by the wildfires that continue to devastate large swaths of land there.
“We’ve never worked so hard on a project before,” club secretary Meghan Kelly, 18, of West Wyoming said, glancing around a room where, guided by their teacher Antoinette Jones, several students used sewing machines while others hand stitched, or measured and cut material.
“This brought us together,” Kelly said. “We all love animals, and it’s hard to see pictures of the little animals who were in the fire. It’s just a tragedy.”
“Oh, my God. I love animals and I was so upset,” Isabella Mora, 16, of Exeter said, wincing as she remembered seeing painful images of koalas and other animals from Australia. “One had half its fur burnt off, and its ears were burned.”
But the students are glad they have a chance to help. They hope the pouches, which they describe as being “sewn with love in every stitch,” will provide warmth and comfort to small fire victims that no longer have access to their mothers’ natural pouches.
“I love picturing that something I made will be hugging the animals,” Olivia Kondrosky, 16, of West Wyoming, said as she cut material.
“They’d be so traumatized. They need something to comfort them,” said Kayla Barber, 16, of Exeter, who plans to become a veterinarian. “This is awesome, for me to be able to send them something.”
“I can’t go to Australia, obviously, so this is the easiest way to help,” said Kelly Casterline, 16, of Exeter.
Students postponed work on other projects, Jones said, and many devoted their own time to making the Joey pouches.
“A lot of us came here during study halls, every chance we had,” Gia Jadus, 15, of West Pittston, confirmed.
“We’re all excited to be helping someone on another continent,” said Jones, who suggested the project to her students after reading an invitation crafter Carol Ferguson of Pittston had posted on social media.
Ferguson said the Wyoming Area students and 13 other crafters responded to her invitation, and some made blankets and “bird nests” to send to Australia, in addition to the Joey pouches. “It’s just wonderful, the response I received,” she said, adding, “Those kids put their hearts and souls into this.”
The Associated Press reported earlier this month 40,000 square miles of Australian brushland and national parks have burned so far, and quoted University of Sydney ecologist Christopher Dickman’s estimate that 1 billion animals have perished as a result.
