779 Blankets In-765 Blankets Out

Our Project Linus Chapter here in Humboldt is not going to let this VIRUS get us down!  It certainly has posed some challenges for us.  We have been unable to meet as a group for over four months.  The agencies who receive our blankets have had to change their operations which has meant that our blanket deliveries have slowed down.

Our Chapter delivered 32 blankets in June so we know that there remains a need for what we provide.  Our Blanketeers had hoped to deliver 1000 blankets by December 31, 2020.  That hope was put out there before the pandemic hit our country and county. To date, we have made 779 blankets and delivered 765 blankets. We may not reach that 1,000 goal this year, but I think we should feel quite proud of what we have accomplished since we began in May 2018 and remember it is not just the number of blankets we make, but how much one blanket may mean to the child who receives it.

For example, I made a recent delivery of blankets to Betty Chinn’s Family Shelter.  She told me that when she gives a child one of our blankets, she tells them:  “This blanket was made especially for you.  I did not buy it in a store.”  Betty feels that this personalized blanket message creates a special bond between the child and the blanket. Hopefully, that bond also creates some comfort which is the goal of a Project Linus blanket.

I recently received a photo of a young child with one of our blankets wrapped around his back and shoulders.  It pretty much summed up why we do what we do.  Even though we can’t meet and we have no timeline for when it will be safe to do so, our Blanketeers are making blankets and delivering them to me curbside, so I can deliver them to the agencies who need them now.

I think Covid fatigue is real as well as the fear of contracting it. Absent the ability to meet, I send out monthly virtual meeting agendas to keep our Blanketeers informed on my activities as the Chapter Coordinator. Just about the time I start to feel that fatigue, someone delivers a batch of beautiful, homemade blankets and some agency e-mails to let me know they could use a few blankets and that fatigue goes away!

My sincere thanks to our Chapter’s Blanketeers as well as our current community supporters: Coast Central Credit Union, Humboldt Sponsors, Morgan Stanley and private donors in our community.  I may sound like the proverbial broken record but, I could not do this without all of you!