Eleven-year-old Na’keon bit his lip and furrowed his brow in concentration as he leaned over the sewing machine, carefully guiding the fabric through with his hands.

When he finished, he snipped the thread, turned his project right side out and immediately got a huge grin on his face. “That’s very cool,” he said as he took his first look at his finished football-themed pajama pants. “This was a lot of fun.”
That was the goal of 16-year-old Ellie Guyader, who recently provided a sewing class for some of the students in YWCA Central Alabama’s Summer Adventures in Learning (SAIL) program. “I love to sew,” she said. “It’s fun to teach people a life skill that I think we’re losing now. The kids pick it up really quickly.”