Comfort Quilts Filled with Love

Heidi Wesolowski had explained to her five-year-old son, Aidan, the night before that she’d be out volunteering the next day “to help make quilts filled with love for people who are sick.” So Aidan and his younger sister, Leah, soon to be three, gave Mom a big group hug filled with lots of love before she set out for The Power of the Quilt Project spring quilt-a-thon.
Wesolowski spent the day in the company of 15 other volunteers, some from Ashland and surrounding area towns, learning the intricacies of coordinating fabric colors, measuring, cutting and combining materials to create comfort quilt top take-home kits.
Other volunteers machine pieced colorful blocks and borders or hand-sewed labels to any of the 22 lap robes that had been completed in advance and brought to the quilt-a-thon event on National Quilting Day (March 17).
The Power of the Quilt Project, first established in 2003, is one of many service and justice ministries of the Unitarian Universalist Area Church, First Parish of Sherborn.
Over the course of a year, participating volunteers, contribute to making about 200 comfort quilts for distribution to men, women and children at a Boston-based medical facility who welcome the touch of a handmade item during their chemotherapy treatments. Each person takes one of these colorful lap robes home to enjoy.
Animal-themed and other youth-oriented quilts are given to Project Linus to bring warmth and comfort to young children facing hardship who are staying in hospitals or shelters.
Volunteers of all ages and abilities are welcome.
To learn more about The Power of the Quilt Project’s upcoming summer kit-making event and future quilt-a-thons, email project coordinator Diane McNamara at dimcnamara@verizon.net. For more information about the project and to see volunteers in action, visit the PQP blog at http://www.powerofthequilt.blogspot.com.