Small scale with a big impact

If you walk into Norm and Sharon Ewert’s basement in Wheaton, Illinois, you might think you stumbled into a dollhouse factory. At any one time, there are 20 to 30 wooden dollhouses in various stages of the rebuilding process. How did these two retired professors turn into “dollhouse flippers” to benefit MCC?

The story begins with another of their connections with MCC. Students at nearby Wheaton College have been coming to the Ewert’s home every Thursday night for what they’ve affectionately deemed the “Menno Meal” since 1980.

The weekly gathering originated in the late 70s when several Mennonite World Conference staff members took some students to visit Lombard Mennonite Church, the Ewert’s home congregation. The students had lots of questions about Mennonites and Anabaptism, so Rosemary Wyse invited them over for dinner and included Norm in the dinner invitation.

“It was just informal conversation over dinner,” remembers Norm. That informal conversation turned into over 40 years of shared meals and conversations. When Norm and Sharon got married, they took over hosting duties and the gathering grew.

Both Norm and Sharon have long connections with Wheaton College, Norm as a professor of economic development for 41 years and Sharon as English professor/department chair for 40 years. Inviting the students into their home was a natural connection for them and became part of their weekly routine, even in the midst of raising a family.

“The theme was usually talking about the nature of Christian responsibility in the context of the global church,” said Norm. “It was the highlight of the week for us for years. Students would engage and ask good questions. Our guests frequently would say they were inspired by the students.”

At the beginning, the gathering was small, around 12 to 15 students and maybe a faculty member or two. The group grew steadily as word spread, and before the COVID-19 pandemic put the meals on pause in 2020, they were averaging close to 60 students per week, many times with a guest speaker who was sometimes connected with MCC.

The Ewerts always provided the food, but students would come early to help cook or stay later to help clean up. “We did a lot of cooking from the Extending the Table cookbook,” says Sharon. “We had a good time!”

“The students in the group wanted to do something for MCC,” explained Sharon. They knew that a traditional activity like quilting wasn’t an option, as no one in the group possessed those skills.

“We had done a lot of building on our house and had scrap wood left over,” she said. “We had a student whose father was a builder, so we got plans for a dollhouse and built one from scratch.”

They knew that a high-quality wooden dollhouse could raise funds for MCC through the Illinois Mennonite Relief Sale auction. And that it did! That first dollhouse in the late 1980s brought in around $900 for MCC, thanks in part to the auctioneer who was the father of one of the students. In fact, it was auctioned twice as the original buyer immediately donated it back to be auctioned a second time.

Once they built that first dollhouse, the Ewerts were hooked. Now that they are retired, they spend much of their time working on the dollhouses. “It’s a fun hobby for us,” said Norm. “Our house is kind of covered in them,” added Sharon.

They work on two or three at a time so that they can be working on houses simultaneously without being on top of each other. When asked how many dollhouses they have donated in the total, Norm and Sharon laughed and said, “A lot!” They estimate they’ve donated around 30 or more dollhouses.

Each of the dollhouses are 1:12 scale, meaning one inch in the dollhouse equals one foot in a full-scale house. The houses end up being around 30-45 inches wide and 30 inches tall.

They now rehabilitate second-hand dollhouses rather than starting from scratch. They regularly comb through Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for listings of wooden dollhouses that somebody never finished putting together or played with many years ago but have been sitting around gathering dust.

Similar to people who buy old houses and flip them, Norm and Sharon start by gutting the old dollhouses. Norm is in charge of structural changes like moving walls or adding rooms. “Sharon does all the finish work to make them look pretty,” he says.

And these aren’t basic wooden dollhouses. Each dollhouse is completely renovated and customized – complete with electricity, intricate furniture and lots of fun little details.

“Often we’ll print the cover for Simply in Season or Extending the Table cookbooks and put that on the counter top,” said Sharon. “Sometimes we’ll put an MCC relief sale brochure in the mailbox. I often make a bag with a Ten Thousand Villages stamp on it and stick it in the house somewhere.”

They’ve gotten their family involved in the process as well. Their son uses his 3D printer to help make special pieces that are hard to find. Their five-year-old grandson has begun helping them work on the houses. And their two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter is always eager to test out the dollhouses and accessories.

Norm and Sharon have found that the people who sell or donate the old dollhouses to them are so appreciative to see them given love and attention.

One house that Sharon found on Craigslist was from a woman whose mother had bought a dollhouse kit for the two of them to work on together as they processed the death of the girl’s father. But the mother-daughter duo had never finished the dollhouse. “She was delighted that we were effectively finishing her mother’s project,” said Norm. They will send her pictures of the finished project before donating it, as they do with each of their rehabilitation projects.

Norm and Sharon have begun donating the dollhouses beyond the MCC relief sale in Illinois to sales in Indiana, Kansas, Iowa and Pennsylvania. Every year they also donate one to the local Ten Thousand Villages store for their fundraising raffle.

Sometimes those donations come full circle, such as when two years ago they contacted a seller on Craigslist about a dollhouse that looked exactly like one they had previously donated to the Illinois Relief Sale in 1992.  

“He called the next morning and said when he read our email, the hair stood up on his neck. He said, ‘if you want this back, it’s yours,’” said Norm. “It was still in great shape, we just had to make a few repairs and we took it back down to the sale.”

Norm and Sharon say it’s a bit stressful watching the dollhouses get auctioned at the relief sales. The amount each house sells for varies. The highest went for $2,500 while others have averaged $500-$800 more recently.

In his professor role, Norm helped start a program called “Human Needs and Global Resources” which places students in international internships with developmental organizations for six months. During visits to those locations, they would often interact with the work of MCC and Ten Thousand Villages.

Norm and Sharon helped to establish the Ten Thousand Villages store in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, in the early 80s, and Sharon currently serves as the board chair and regular volunteer. Many of Norm and Sharon’s family members have also served with MCC throughout the years, so they feel connected with MCC on a deep level.

“We have no desire to keep these dollhouses. We want them to go to other people, but we don’t want to just sell them. We want them to be raising money for a good cause,” said Sharon. “We believe in what MCC does. We’ve seen MCC work around the world, and we absolutely want to support that.”