Members of local Family and Community Education Clubs spent a part of their day on Wednesday working on some special projects to help two local agencies.
The FCE Clubs, which are part of the UT Extension Office, work throughout the year on a variety of projects as a way to give back to their communities. Wednesday’s special projects were geared toward helping provide comfort to hospice patients and providing some needed supplies to the Elizabethton/Carter County Animal Shelter.
For the hospice patients, club members sewed “hand grippers.” These small items feature small pad filled with pillow stuffing that rests in the patient’s palm and is secured with a loose elastic band to their hand.
Some patients in hospice care experience a condition where their hands draw up and close, and this can cause their fingernails to dig into the palms of their hands. The hand grippers provide these patients with a soft barrier in to keep the fingernails from scratching the patient’s hand, said Vickie Clark, the Director of the Carter County UT Extension Office.
The batch of hand grippers the club members sewed on Wednesday will be donated to Avalon Hospice.
“We made about 30 for them last year,” Clark said. “They contacted us and asked us if we could make some more.”
Clark said the club members would be willing to make the hand grippers for other area hospice services as well as local nursing homes.

Once the club members finished the hand grippers, they began work on a project to help some of the community’s four-legged residents. Using different kinds of fabric, the club members sewed cat hammocks for the Elizabethton/Carter County Animal Shelter. The rectangular hammocks have loops of fabric in each of the four corners to hang the hammocks up.
“They hook ‘D’ rings to them to hang them up,” Clark said. “They can hang them up in the cages or under tables or chairs.”
Currently, there are two active FCE Clubs in the local community —the Elizabethton City FCE Club and the Keenburg FCE Club. Those two clubs meet once a month on a Thursday during the day.
“We are currently trying to start another FCE Club that would meet on Saturdays,” Clark said, adding some individuals who would be interested in joining a club may not be able to meet during daytime hours through the week.
For more information on any of the FCE Clubs or to inquire about helping to launch the weekend club, please contact Vickie Clark at the UT Extension Office by calling 423-542-1818.