Part 2: Annual Report on Charity Quilting

Project Linus is a national organization with an active chapter in the Kansas City metro. The KC group reports distribution of 140,041 quilts and blankets through the years and the national organization reports gifting 8,019,901 quilts and blankets. These are distributed through hospitals, social service agencies, and law enforcement primarily in the communities in which the quilts and blankets are made. I heard that the Ronald McDonald House in Kansas City can use 300 a month, and that’s just one recipient. This is a massive initiative involving scores of volunteers.

From time to time, a Project Linus chapter will receive in-kind donations that are passed on to the volunteers. Twice this year, we received several bags of partially finished quilt tops, fabric panels, random pieced quilt blocks, and fabric through Project Linus. Any quilter will gladly receive yardage. We’ve let the Project Linus folks know that we’ll take all of the orphans that are hard to place.

For example, I have a couple of projects laid out that start with two pieced quilt blocks someone donated. That’s it–two blocks that measure about nine by eighteen inches when put together. My plan is to use the blocks like a medallion around which we will sew a series of borders. I probably enjoy designing quilts out of bits and pieces more than anything else.

We’ll also create a quilt from printed fabric panels. I posted a photo a couple of days ago of a quilt made with a printed panel. We made one quilt out of two Snoopy panels originally intended to be made into a throw pillow. Give us a scrap and we’ll turn it into a quilt for a kid.

Sometimes the donation is a partially completed quilt top. Judi has finished a twin-sized quilt top where she removed a few border pieces, stabilized the rest, and added fabric from our stash to the ends. It’s now in the bin waiting my work on the longarm quilting machine.

Consider the quilt in the attached photo. When we received this top that uses a star pattern, it measured about 44 inches square. We added fabric to both ends to create a twin-size quilt that I quilted on Monday of this week.

Here’s my point. Judi and I are part of an ecosystem of goodness. Someone did the original piecing for the quilt in the photo. Sometimes a quilt top like this comes to Project Linus from a person settling an estate. Project Linus volunteers receive, sort, and distribute. We finished the top and quilted it. Project Linus volunteers will sew on a label and take it to a hospital or agency. A nurse or social worker will give the quilt to a child. Judi and I recently heard a volunteer describe taking quilts to a local children’s mental health hospital. Maybe this quilt will go to Crittenton, too.

Do you see the system of goodness? It could be that the person who originally sewed the quilt top stewed over not finishing the project. I’ve done that on occasion. But when you step back and look at the whole sequence, no one fails when it’s a community initiative.

I am quite weary of social media influencers who seem to only want to build their brand. I’ve had it with leaders who seem to think only in terms of what will consolidate political power. It’s not possible to overestimate my disgust. I’m tired of it all.

Instead, we need more stories of people helping people. The more intently you look, the more it is evident that we are a community of good, good people. In our neighborhood, for example, a middle-aged husband/father died unexpectedly. The neighbors immediately organized a meal train. It didn’t matter that those who signed up to bring in food barely knew the grieving family. In the dance of life, you just lead with kindness. We need to see more clearly the multiple streams of care and concern that flow through the community. It happens year-round, too, not just in December.

That’s the type of community in which I will invest my time, talent, and treasure. Our involvement with Project Linus has brought us into an ecosystem of goodness.

Here’s another point I’ve been pondering in these final days of 2020. When pioneers set out on the Oregon Trail, their quilts provided much needed warmth. There was an up-close-and-personal function for the quilts they wrapped around their shoulders. In contrast, patients at Children’s Mercy Hospital have bedding provided. They don’t need a Project Linus quilt to keep warm.

This means that there is something else at play.

Consider this story I read a couple of days ago. When a father finished a quilt, he held it up to show his toddler/daughter. She came running to him. He gathered her in the quilt and raised her with a loving hug. The father said that that was one of only a few times he had hugged his daughter, not because he was stingy, but because she is on the autism spectrum and hugs feel suffocating to her.

What happened in that moment? Why did the toddler run away one minute but ran toward when the quilt showed up? How does a quilt seem to break down barriers? What is it about a quilt that embodies comfort? Why is it that when swaddled in a quilt an anxious child feels protected?

I have barely begun to answer that type of question, but intuitively I know that a quilt provides emotional warmth as well as physical warmth. There’s a whole lot at play with a gifted quilt that is difficult to articulate or quantify. Let me propose a starting place that warrants further consideration.

Somehow, a quilt embodies the beloved community. Fabric, thread, and batting become a potent image of a gathered people. This gathering is a diverse group–some of whom have been cut apart by life–who create something beautiful when stitched together. Somehow, the physical engagement of those who create a quilt–the infusion of creativity, the touching of fabric–is translated so that the care put into the quilt’s construction actually becomes contained within that quilt. Call it the quilter’s version of consubstantiation, if you will–the quilt is still cotton fabric and batting, but somehow it is transformed from the inside out into something greater. The person who receives the quilt sees in it more than just physical warmth. It is a dynamic connection with folks–simple, common people–who intend good, who seek to provide and protect, whose kindness is both grace-full and mercy-full. Somehow, in a gifted quilt the community shows up and the child is engulfed in a group hug.

Last night, Judi read to me a story posted on the Project Linus Volunteers Facebook page. When Ryan was four years old, he was diagnosed with leukemia. He received a Project Linus quilt while he was hospitalized. He’s now 28 and he still cherishes that quilt. Somehow, this quilt has taken on a meaning much greater than the sum of fabric plus batting plus thread. In a consumer culture where fads wither and blow away, a quilt has a long, vibrant lifespan.

Consider this post to the Facebook group written by a thirteen-year-old girl. She reported that she received a Project Linus quilt when she was three years old. That quilt continues to be her favorite and lays beside her each night. Somehow, that quilt possessed enormous healing power that calms and comforts even ten years later. It’s a hug that lingers. This girl is beginning to sew and has declared that she, too, will join the community that extends and embodies its care through quilts.

There’s something going on that appropriately can be understood simply as mystery. The quilt feels the same as other items constructed of fabric, but, somehow, there is much greater meaning in a quilt than in, say, a shirt, even a favorite shirt. For a Project Linus quilt, I have come to believe, it is the embodiment of a caring community.

The “quilting bee” casts a long shadow in history and literature. The basic meaning of “bee” is a gathering to assist a neighbor. A “threshing bee,” for example, involves neighbors getting together to help bring in the harvest.

Some have suggested that a “bee” reflects the communal nature of a bee hive, of bees working together for the benefit of all. That’s a compelling image that can generate numerous insights, but it doesn’t align with the etymology of the word.

When you look at the history of the word “bee,” you find a connection with the Latin word “bene” which means “well.” This “wellness” is clearly evident in words such as benefactor and benefit. Consider the word benediction: to bless or show favor. When looked through the “bene” lens, then, a quilting bee is a communal initiative to bless and favor others.

The health information privacy regulations (HIPAA) appropriately protect patients. Those of us who make quilts distributed by Project Linus do not know who receives the quilts nor do the recepients know who made the quilts. But I’m okay with that because, somehow, care and concern and compassion are sandwiched into every quilt made. This benevolence slips past the HIPAA regulators every time. Recipients intuitively feel the love as the community shows up when a Project Linus quilt is given to a child.

So Judi and I seek to embody goodness in every quilt we make. That’s why we do what we do.