SENIOR VOLUNTEER LOVES WORKING FOR OTHERS.

Byline: BETTIE RENCORET Senior Columnist 

It's a labor of love when Cordie Sowers joins the Lutheran Braille Workers on Mondays to assemble books for the blind.

She is one of about 35 volunteers, most of them senior citizens, who work regularly at Grace Lutheran Church under the leadership of Paul Droemer.

``This Braille work center was started in the summer of 1981 with three groups of nine or ten,'' she said. ``Many of the original workers . . . are still with us.''

The three groups have now grown to four, said Droemer, a robust 81, since several teen-agers expressed a desire to participate.

``We have one group that works Monday nights, another on Tuesday afternoons, a third on Thursday evenings and now the high school youths who meet one Saturday morning a month,'' he said.

Zinc plates were stacked on separation sheets in preparation for running them through the roller presses to emboss the finished pages. Another shift was assigned to bind them into durable spiral covers, making them ready for distribution. ``This is a two-volume book,'' said Droemer as he and Sowers showed an example of the finished product, a large white tome.

``This is Volume One of `Primary Bible Stories' in grade-1-1/2 English Braille,'' he said. ``It contains 170 pages of Old Testament stories. Volume Two is 134 pages of stories from the New Testament, and we also produce a 126-page book of Second Kings in grade-2 English Braille.''

All of the assembled books are mailed free, said Sowers, to individuals and schools for the blind throughout the United States, Canada, India, Africa and other countries.

``We began our 18th year in September, and in that length of time we have produced and mailed a total of 19,497 books,'' said Droemer. ``The credo of the Lutheran Braille Workers is `Bringing Christ to those in darkness,' and we are doing that in the sunset of the 1900s.''

Sowers was born Cordula Echhardt in Blue Earth, Minn. The name Cordula was a common name among ministers' families, and her grandfather was a German Lutheran minister.

``Most people just call me Cordie,'' she said. ``It's a little easier.''

While the Braille project gets most of her attention now, it is not the only thing to which Sowers has given her devotion. She just recently finished 35 outfits for Alzheimer's patients in a local nursing home.

She always has loved to sew, and she creates with materials provided by other women of her church.

``Sometimes patients are dropped off at the convalescent homes by relatives who never come back,'' she said. ``Their clothes wear out, you know, and they don't have the resources to get new.''

Now she knits slippers for the convalescent home patients and, while she is not a regular helper as she once was, she occasionally helps with feeding the homeless from the church kitchen.

``I've slowed down some, but the Lord knows what I'm doing,'' she grinned.