Hope’s Door celebrated its first year as a Dowagiac-based non-profit organization Sunday with a Garden Party fundraiser.

The event was created to support families by helping mothers overcome addiction.

The organization provides transitional housing for women in recovery.

Hope’s Door offers a safe place in which women can gain necessary skills so they can re-enter the community and raise healthy, productive families.

The Garden Party, called “Sewn Together in Love,” featured a gallery of quilts.

One quilt in particular was the subject of the fundraising effort.

“Quilts represent remnants that are sewn together to make a colorful, beautiful blanket,” stated Patti Helmuth-Whitcomb, Hope’s Door executive director.

“Quilts are very similar to the work we do. Women who are hurting come to us as broken people and we provide hope, a safe environment and an opportunity to rebuild their lives — make them whole persons. We believe that this is a very appropriate event to commemorate Sept. 11. It was a day of extreme tragedy that showed that we as people can come together in an amazing way.”

Each table hostess decorated her own table and provided tea and light refreshments for their guests.

As a way of representing how the nation came together, the event symbolizes that as each person does a small part, much can get done. Hope’s Door is supported and operated by individual donors and volunteer services.

The goal of the event was to raise enough money to support Hope’s Door for at least six months.

Everyone received an auction paddle to raise to offer financial support at various dollar amounts.

“We believe that this community is among the most generous and civic-minded in the area,” commented Helmuth-Whitcomb. “Our court system, our community leaders and our citizens have joined together to help us insure that women who have had a difficult start in life get a second chance and, most importantly, that their children grow up in loving, safe homes.”

Hope’s Door Ministry is a 501 c 3 non-profit organization that believes that women (mothers) are the foundation of the family unit. That families are the foundation of the community. Community is the foundation of society, and one mother “recovered” equals a safer family and safer community.

Those who did not attend the event can mail a donation to Hope’s Door, 207 Orchard St., Dowagiac, MI 49047.