Happy 6th Birthday to Us!
Six years ago in May 2018, we held our first meeting of Project Linus Humboldt. We met at the Bunny Hop Quilt Shop. The Times Standard published an article about our new chapter inviting interested people to attend. I was so pleased to see about 12 people show up. Their enthusiasm and blanket ideas foreshadowed the promise of a small, but mighty chapter!
We met at the Bunny Hop Quilt Shop every month until March 2020 when the pandemic shut the world down. Things were closed, but that did not stop our chapter from making and delivering blankets to children in our community needing a blanket hug. While wearing masks and social distancing, I lost count of the number of blanket deliveries made to my home over the next year. A global pandemic was not going to stop us from our blanket work.
We were able to start meeting regularly again in June 2021 at Buttons in Old Town. Many of our original Blanketeers are still with us and we have added new makers along the way. I continue to be impressed with the quality of our blankets: the fabric, the designs, the construction, and the quilting stitches.
A few days ago I delivered 27 blankets to Betty Chinn’s Family Shelter. I asked a fellow at the agency’s reception desk to help me carry the blankets inside. When I opened the back of my car and he saw the 4 bags of blankets in large, clear plastic bags with sizes from birth to age nine, he looked stunned as he turned to me and asked: “Did you make all of these?” “No,” I said, “but a group of women did.” He paused and replied: “My mother is a quilter and I know how much work goes into a quilt. Thank you.”
We may have set a record this month with 65 blankets delivered. In addition to Betty Chinn’s program, our blankets have gone to the Nurse Family Partnership, Women, Infants and Children, Healthy Moms, the California Tribal TANF Partnership, and the Youth Service Bureau Teen Shelter. Agency staff, without exception, are so appreciative of our work. Their thanks confirms the fact that our blankets do make a difference in the lives of children and the families they serve.
Below is a photo of our blanket inventory before May’s deliveries and after those deliveries. The 67 blankets going out put a dent in our blanket supply, but I have no doubt that it will replenished at future monthly meetings.
Before
After
My sincere thanks to all of our Blanketeers who have made 2,631 blankets in the past 6 years. Without them I would not be delivering blankets each and every month. Your talent, creativity and generous spirit is a gift that I treasure.
To our community funders: Coast Central Credit Union, Soroptimist’s International of Humboldt Bay, and the Christine and Jalmer Berg Foundation I say “Thank You” for your support of our blanket efforts.
To all of our individual donors over the past 6 years, we have been touched by your generosity.
To Margaret at Buttons who is there for us on the last Saturday of each month, we appreciate your sharing of the Buttons space with us.
And to my husband, Alfredo, thank you for assisting with the digital aspects of Project Linus Humboldt website, your encouragement, and lifting the heaviest blanket sacks in and out of my car.
From me to all of you…I give a toast for making the past 6 years of blanket meetings, making and their deliveries such a success.