Once again, Margaret Jankowski's Sewing Machine Project is helping people stitch together their lives.

The Monona woman began collecting used sewing machines after she heard about how women in Sri Lanka lost their livelihoods when they lost their machines in the 2004 tsunami.

From there, Jankowski also collected machines to take to the Gulf Coast area after Hurricane Katrina.

Now, more machines are on their way to Haiti.

When the earthquake struck in January, Jankowski got a calls and e-mails asking "What are you going to do about Haiti?"

She contacted the U.S. Agency for International Development, who put her in touch with a Georgia-based group working with 70 Haitian sewers who needed machines to make clothes for an orphanage.

A Baton Rouge, La., contact said he'd donate 100 new machines, valued at about $15,000. The machines are headed to Miami, where they'll be loaded on to a boat for Haiti.

Closer to home, Jankowski is organizing a pilot program to lend sewing machines to groups that need them for a class, a project or skills training.