West End Baptist women make jump ropes from T-shirts for Christmas shoeboxes

It started with a little online inspiration and ended up being a big, fun project, according to Karen Watkins.

And now the women of West End Baptist Church in Clanton are sending more than 300 handmade jump ropes to children in other countries this Christmas season.

Watkins, the church’s ladies ministry director, and Benita Hallmark, Women of West End’s missions director, work together on women’s events, and she said Hallmark “had seen something (online) where they were making jump ropes out of t-shirts.”

They then found some how-to videos on YouTube.

“Church members donated hundreds of T-shirts, and Benita cut them into strips,” Watkins said.

Building momentum

Then the women met in late August for a rope braiding day, and in about three hours finished 72 jump ropes. They took home materials to keep working on them, and as of now they’ve finished more than 300 to pack in Operation Christmas Child boxes.

“West End Baptist donated 541 shoeboxes last year and is a central drop off location in Alabama for other churches and other drop off locations to bring their boxes to, which will then be transported from West End Baptist to the Atlanta processing center to be sent overseas to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Watkins said.

She said the jump rope project has been a great addition to their yearly shoebox project.

“It’s fun, we enjoy it, and it’s a great way to get involved in missions,” she said.