Donate to the Guild

 The Guild of St Clare was founded in 2010 in order to create a network of needlewomen to support priests celebrating the Traditional Mass, by mending and making their vestments and altar furnishings. Thirteen years on, it has grown into a vigorous community bound together by love of the Church and a desire to serve her. We are mending and making vestments all over Britain and beyond. Our regional Chapters in London, Oxford, Birmingham, Withermarsh Green and the North country provide local support to the Mass centres near them (including FSSP and ICKSP apostolates, as well as diocesan priests), and our national events, especially our twice-yearly Sewing Retreats, attract participants from as far afield as the USA, as well as other European countries. In this way we are able not only to support priests from a large geographical area, but even more importantly, to teach our skills to an increasingly diverse audience who can then take them back to their home countries. In this way, the Guild of St Clare, although very small, has a global reach unlike any other similar apostolate. Education is an essential part of what we do, and to this end we established the annual Royal School of Needlework Sponsorship Scheme, through which one or two candidates each year are awarded 50% of the fees for the prestigious Certificate Course. This course, which tutors students through four embroidery techniques, provides the foundational skills for vestment making and embroidering. Since the scheme was set up in 2019 we have sponsored six candidates (several of whom are still pursuing their studies), who are now able to bring their knowledge to Guild of St Clare events, making their expertise available to our many volunteers. With our growing team of skilled needleworkers, we have begun to develop a range of ecclesiastically themed sewing kits, ranging from embroidery samplers to travelling stoles, and including projects suitable for all ages such as our beautiful pocket shrines and embroidered brown scapulars, which we hope will provide an opportunity to teach important skills in the context of church sewing and embroidery. The Guild of St Clare is a unique apostolate, which has proved to be of use in many more ways than we imagined when we first set it up. It is our earnest desire that it should grow and flourish as much as possible and that especially that we should be able to expand our educational work. More funds will enable to us to organise embroidery workshops at both a local and a national level, led by Royal School of Needlework graduates; to buy the materials we need for repairs and for our educational kits, and to increase the numbers of candidates we can sponsor through the RSN Certificate course. Donors who give us £100 or more will receive a beautiful Guild of St Clare mug with the Vestment Mender's Prayer on it. We love to hear from our donors and to pray for them personally at our retreats, so please get in touch so we can welcome you to the Guild of St Clare community.