People of SewGreen: Katie Hardin

Katie Hardin personifies SewGreen’s principles of community, creativity, and sustainability. Though she’s only been on staff since January 2025, she feels at home. As a SewGreen associate, Katie can assist customers, answer phones, and run the register, but grant writing is her super power. Katie combines the caring heart of her degree in Anthropology with the precision of her minor in Chemistry to craft grants that will make a difference for SewGreen. Katie’s goal is to expand founder Georgia Carney’s vision of community by connecting with people in SewGreen’s immediate neighborhood. She regularly confers with board members and staff about ideas, and has already submitted eight grant proposals to local organizations. Katie’s objective is to share the sustainable skills of fiber arts with neighbors while breaking the barriers of food, housing, and healthcare. So far, Katie plans to address these needs by building a food pantry on Canal Street with donated supplies. She has also proposed Coming Home, an anthropological interview of people who lived in Rochester from the 1950s - 1980s about how businesses were part of the neighborhood, with the purpose of finding ways for SewGreen to be more community oriented. Since the Phillis Wheatley Community Library is located in the same zip code, Katie has reached out to the library so fiber arts programs can be added that will benefit the SewGreen neighbors. A more immediate possibility is to have class participants “sponsor a class spot,” making SewGreen accessible to everyone. 

In addition to her role at SewGreen, Katie embroiders, crochets, regularly repurposes vintage clothes, and is willing to learn machine sewing. Katie currently has a science fiction short story being edited for a volume to be published at the University of Queensland. The editors of this academic publication believe that all activism is science fiction because you are imagining a different world. Her story shows how to make violent spaces more habitable, and is a perfect fit. Whether writing short stories or grants, Katie certainly has insights for a better future. When Katie is not busy using the prioritization of chemistry with a vision for change, you can find this coffee-loving Rochestarian curled up with her cats, Rambo and Buddy.