With its new buttonhole and interior button, Henry Davis can better fasten his coat come colder days.
After trying on his coat, Davis, 57, and a resident of Catholic Charities Twin Cities’ Higher Ground in Minneapolis, paused and regarded the woman behind her sewing machine atop a small table just inside the residence’s entrance.
“May God bless and keep you,” he said. “We need more like you.”
Since January 2016, Karen Martodam, 70, has wheeled a wagon containing her sewing supplies into the Higher Ground campus and The Mary F. Frey Opportunity Center, also in Minneapolis, to repair clothing items for those who need them.
“I started out (on) a weekly basis,” said Martodam, a member of St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 — the same year her husband, Dennis, retired — she turned to volunteering roughly twice a month.
Aug. 19 marked her last day participating in her regular volunteer schedule.
“It’s a little surreal that this is my last little trip with my wagon,” she said.
Martodam’s earliest experiences with sewing trace back to her days growing up as one of 14 children on a farm in southwest Minnesota, south of Worthington and close to the Iowa border.
Though growing up with 13 siblings — 11 brothers and two sisters — was “chaotic many times,” Martodam fondly recalled the garden produce the family enjoyed and the animals they cared for on the farm.
Martodam also learned to sew.
“My mother sewed for us,” she said. “On the farm, you know, the blue jeans were terribly, terribly worn as you can imagine. And my mom would do patches.” It was among the first sewing lessons Martodam’s mother taught her: “how to use the sewing machine to fix things.”
As a teenager, her sewing skills grew in home economics classes as she began making her own clothing.
As Martodam got older, she said working and obtaining her undergraduate degree in accounting kept her too busy to sew consistently. She and Dennis married just before she obtained her degree and soon, they welcomed their two daughters. She continued her work as a tax manager.
“I just kept working and raising children, and I didn’t really do much sewing during my working career,” Martodam said. “And I did not have a job where I thought I could take a lot of time off for volunteering.”
She still found ways during her working years to assist those in need; with her professional background in finance, she volunteered with St. Paul-based Prepare and Prosper, which she described as a “tax prep program for the low income” population.
When she retired in 2015 as a tax manager for 3M, headquartered in Maplewood, she said, “I decided I needed to pay back. I feel that I’m very blessed and I wanted to somehow pay back, and I wanted to use skills that I had that other people did not necessarily have.”
Her attention turned to Catholic Charities; her brother-in-law, Paul Martodam, was formerly president and CEO of the agency. She reached out to Brett Zimowicz, who joined Catholic Charities in 2001 and has been a volunteer specialist with the organization since 2007.
Zimowicz said Martodam began by helping with “meal service and customer service kinds of things.”
“After I got familiar with it (those volunteer roles), I worked with the social workers (who) were here on staff,” Martodam said.
She witnessed firsthand people experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness. The Catholic Charities Higher Ground Minneapolis campus provides 251 emergency shelter beds and 253 permanent supportive housing units across three residential buildings. There, hot meals, showers, lockers, housing case management and medical care from Hennepin County Health Care for the Homeless are also available. The Mary F. Frey Opportunity Center, meanwhile, offers services to help improve health, income, housing stability and well-being for those in need.
“I decided I really wanted to reach out with my sewing skills to help,” she said. “And I started bringing my sewing machine, and here we are.”
“She was able to look at what’s going around her and take her passions and her skills to be able to fill a special need,” Zimowicz said. “The staff really enjoy her, the residents and guests that we have at our locations really enjoy her, and to know that she’s coming in on a volunteer basis is really meaningful for people, to know that she’s coming to do work for free because she cares so much.”
Erin Manuel has been a housing support coordinator with Catholic Charities for the past two years; from her spot at the Higher Ground front desk, Manuel often saw and heard the exchanges Martodam and the residents shared.
“They love when Karen comes because it’s a familiar face and they know that she’s here to help them,” Manuel said of the residents’ reactions to Martodam’s visits.
Sean McKee-Page, 29, and a resident of Higher Ground, said Martodam offering to mend items for residents is “something that’s unexpected, that is definitely a plus to the whole living-here situation.”
“I have given her clothes, and she’s made them 100% brand new,” McKee-Page said, adding that he’s dropped off items for Martodam to repair a few times. “She does an amazing job.”
Davis agreed: “She does a lot of this little stuff for me, you know — and for the community, not just for me. … I just feel like it’s personal because she does it with love.”
There is an element of trust as residents hand over their items for Martodam to mend because for some of the residents, “they only have the one pair of pants,” Manuel said. “And they’re not very comfortable with people touching their stuff, necessarily, because it could be their only worldly possession.”
“I like the fact that she’s very upfront with them, and if she can do it then she will do it,” Manuel said about witnessing how Martodam talks through repairs with residents.
Martodam’s wagon contains her sewing machine, a bin of over 30 colors of thread, patches and other bits of fabric, bias tape, buttons, an iron and ironing pad, a cutting mat, and a pincushion with pins and needles, among other items.
She supplies all the materials herself, sometimes sourcing from a fabric store she visits in Brooklyn Center, “or I’ll buy things on sale or use coupons or whatever. I just, you know, I’m a thrifter.”
Martodam said it’s often about “function over form” when she repairs items.
“I have replaced probably about 100 zippers,” she said. “When I first started back in 2016, I would guess that almost every week somebody brought an article of clothing that needed a new zipper.”
“I’ve shortened polo shirts for people who are not very tall, and I’ve hemmed pants,” she said.
Martodam recalled regular visits from one man who “would wear stretchy gloves that little kids would wear and there would always be a little hole somewhere.
“For about a year before he passed, I think every time I was here, he brought me a pair of gloves that he wanted the hole stitched up. And he was just such a nice person, very polite, respectful.”
In another instance, when a resident brought Martodam a quilt she determined “was not really fixable,” she said, “I did what I could, and then I just felt compelled to go out and buy some fabric and make him a new quilt.”
Martodam carries with her the appreciation she’s received and the growth in patience and understanding she’s gained. From her perspective, offering her sewing services to those in need goes beyond simple mending — it fits within the pursuit of Christian life.
“My attitude is that you should do what you can for people who are less fortunate,” she said. “It’s not that I have this calling to do it, it’s just what you should do; if you can do it, you should.”
What’s next for Martodam? Right after wrapping up repairs at Higher Ground, she planned to donate platelets. Looking a little further ahead, she said she is eager to “spend more time up north at the lake,” visit with family at get-togethers, and attend Vikings games with her family.
She also hopes another person will feel inspired to lend their sewing services by volunteering at Catholic Charities, “even if it’s not every week or every two weeks.”
Until then, Martodam’s absence from Catholic Charities will be felt.
“She is gonna be missed,” Manuel said. “She definitely is gonna be missed.”
