Monday, January 30, 2012

Project Linus Blanket Bee, Phoenix AZ




On Saturday, January 28, I
had the pleasure of attending a Blanket Bee in Phoenix, Arizona with Judee Agee, the former coordinator of the chapter here. Judee and I met years ago at a Project Linus Annual Conference in Bloomington IL. For me, it was a very pleasant day. I am bringing new ideas back to my group! The meeting room was filled to overflowing with about 70 ladies, men and teens, all there to make blankets for kids. It was a beautiful winter day here. The meeting room overlooked the red rock mountains of Phoenix and activities spilled outside onto the sidewalk! Some of us were sewing, many were crocheting & knitting. One volunteer ironed quilt tops for the quilters. One teen organized a table full of donated yarn, then folded and distributed many yards of quilting fabrics. Another dedicated teen checked every blanket for accidental pins by hanging blankets on the rack in the pictures, then scanning with an airport type metal detector! Other volunteers labeled, bagged and tagged blankets, getting them ready for delivery and loading bags into cars and trucks. Over 360 blankets were received and readied for delivery to kids!
The energy of the group recharged my battery! About 400 Project Linus chapters are found all over the United States. We don't do things the same way, we do work with the same guidelines, but our basic purpose and mission is the same-- to comfort hurting children by providing a handmade blanket just for them. An equally important sideline is to provide a wonderful activity for people to use their hearts and their talents to make the blankets. Not all the volunteers who help will actually sew or knit. It takes many hands to do our work! We need energetic volunteers to do recordkeeping, publicity, delivery, organizing, building things, setting up the rooms and loading the vehicles. A job for everyone!