Stitching Impact: How singer Liz Colt Turned Love and Scraps into $30,000 for OIGC
At Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, generosity takes many forms. But few are as joyful, creative, and community-driven as Liz Colt’s.
A singer of more than two decades with deep love for our mission, Liz saw a need and met it with heart, ingenuity, and a whole lot of fabric. What began as a simple idea - hand-sewing small pouches to support youth choir travel - has grown into an extraordinary fundraising effort, raising nearly $30,000 and opening doors for young singers to experience life-changing opportunities. This month, we’re proud to feature Liz, whose story is a powerful reminder that when passion meets purpose, even the smallest acts can create lasting impact.
by Liz Colt
I’ve been asked to share my experience of OIGC fundraising; how I raised almost $30,000 for OIGC by making and selling little $15 and $20 pouches.
That story starts with, I love OIGC!
The community, the music, the shared commitment to harmony across differences and musical excellence, the mission to inspire joy and unity among all people through Black Gospel and Spiritual Music traditions, Terrance… This is my 21st year as a singer in the choir, during which time it has touched and enriched my life immeasurably. I have also experienced first hand its healing and nourishing and changing lives for countless others. During my 21 years, the strengthening and growth of OIGC as an organization and as a family of choirs, its reach in touching lives, and its needs for support have only grown. So, in 2019 when I learned that the youth choir would be traveling to Costa Rica in 2020 and knowing that each young person had to pay their own way, and also knowing that the cost would be prohibitive for some, I started connecting some dots.
The dots: I had done some sewing over the years, and accumulated a lot of fabric. I wasn't doing anything with it. I don't like waste, and I didn't feel good about all this fabric sitting around unappreciated and unused when it could be useful to someone else. As a teenager I traveled to Mexico as an exchange student (my first time out of the country and my first time on an airplane,) with scholarship help. It was life changing. I wanted our OIYC youth to have access to the life changing experience of travel that I was helped to have as a teenager. I wanted to support their passion, their hard work as choir members, their adventuresomeness. I didn’t want to see anyone left behind for lack of funds. I loved OIGC; it had given me SO much. I wanted to do more to give back. Many years ago a friend gifted me with a handmade pouch. A gift I appreciated, and decades later, still have. Dot. Dot. Dot… Connection. Lightbulb moment.
It occurred to me that I could use my stash of fabrics, purchase the needed zippers and thread, etc., sew pouches, make the price low and hopefully reasonable enough to sell as many as possible, and donate all proceeds to the youth choir for their travels. I really didn't know what I was doing, so I went on YouTube to learn how to make a lined, zippered pouch. I worked hard to create something beautiful that was also useful, and worthy of OIGC ambassadorship. The pouch was a tangible demonstration of the way in which giving is also receiving. A fundraising project was born! For the 2020 Costa Rica trip, if memory serves, I raised over $11,000.
At a certain point I ran out of my own fabric supplies and started purchasing it, ultimately discovering creative re-use non-profits where I could get recycled fabrics, zippers and thread that I needed. So now the project was not only supporting OIYC, but also other non-profits who supported creativity and sustainability. Win-win! With an insert in each pouch explaining the fundraiser for OIYC and their travel, and OIGC and its mission, each pouch became a way of spreading the word about OIGC.
Choir members were huge supporters of the project. I sold the pouches at every rehearsal, and at as many performance venues as possible. People not only purchased pouches, but donated extra, motivated to support the youth. I sold to family, friends, neighbors - basically anyone who would listen and every opportunity I got or could create. I approached total strangers with a respectful pitch. Once, at the hair salon, I said to a woman, “you can stop me if you want but I make and sell these pouches for a fundraiser, and I have one that matches your outfit perfectly.” (I always had pouches with me.) She let me tell her about the fundraising. And she bought the pouch. The manicurists at the nail salon bought some. The woman at the sewing store bought many. My desire to finance the youth’s travel and spread the word about OIGC as widely as possible made me rather bold! It also made me extremely grateful and hopeful to see how many people wanted to support, when asked.
After the 2020 OIYC Costa Rica trip I stopped the project. But when I learned in 2023 of OIYC’s 2024 trip to Canada, I resumed. This time I raised my prices by $5 per pouch (even non-profit fundraising has inflation lol,) and raised $14,000. Once again, youth were able to go who would not have been able to go without financial help, and opportunities were created for them that would not have been possible without the help of the fundraising. Again, I stopped the pouchmaking fundraising when they completed their trip. But in the last months of 2025, after learning that financial support for OIGC (and all arts organizations) had dwindled, I resumed - this time fundraising for the OIGC organization as a whole; this time raising $3000 in 3 months.
For now, with the exception of the occasional special orders, I’m mostly on another pouch break. But I can say this: the experience of fundraising and donating to support this unique and amazing organization; of supporting its good works through fundraising in a way that also spreads the word about it, has been beyond rewarding, and joyful. And much like being a grateful member of OIGC, it has been an honor.
