Senior News June, 2001 Vol. 20. No.  6

 

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

"It's our way to help." Open Heart Qulters stitch their donations to nonprofits

Caregivers to receive help

Love and Death: Most relationships don't end at death

Redway: New leadership comes to Healy Senior Center

What seniors want: CSL members follow bills in California Legislature

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"It's our way to help."
Open Heart Qulters stitch their donations to nonprofits
by Barbara Clarke

Putting it all together. From left the members of the Open Heart Quilters stitching the flower quilt together are Mary Lou Bertolini, Marianne Cipolla, Dana Jones, Jill Gallagher, Susan Fowler, Renée Shaw and Jan Werner. Photo by Barbara Clark.

You won't see the Open Heart Quilters in public working on their craft. They're strictly a behind-the-scenes group. Last fall I saw a beautiful tree quilt hung proudly behind the table at the North Country Fair where the Manila Community Center was selling raffle tickets and distributing information about the center's many programs.

That's exactly what the Open Heart Quilters do-create their art work for local nonprofits to use as fundraisers. Some of the quilts have brought in as much as $900.

Founder Jan Werner of Maple Creek said that she and three friends were lamenting four years ago that they loved to quilt but seemed to need an excuse to do it. "So we decided that if we gave our quilts away, it would be easier for us to spend the time. We don't have much to give away, and it's our way of tithing or supporting the community."

With four women at the beginning, the first quilt took almost a year to complete. Now 13 quilts later, the group has 15 members whose ages span the 20s to the 70s and who live from Ferndale to Maple Creek. Werner's daughter and male friend, both Army sergents based in Korea, created squares for the May flower quilt that went to the Youth Service Bureau in Eureka.

The group has its schedule down-a quilt will now take two months to make. At the finishing session of the flower quilt in May, they handed out instructions and color swatches for the one they'll start now. Between meetings, they will each create three squares for it. At the next meeting, they'll decide how the pieces will go together and sew on the sashing to connect the pieces. At the second meeting, they complete that quilt, draw a name and hand out new instructions.

The group has had a show during Arts Arcata night and member Dana Jones will have a personal exhibit of her quilts at the Arcata Exchange during Arts Arcata the second Friday in September. Another member, Renée Shaw, is working on her masters in costume design at HSU.

When they began, they contacted 20 local nonprofits and received 11 replies to their offer to make fundraising quilts for the organizations. Since 1997 they have donated quilts to Arcata Children's Center, the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, CASA, Habitat for Humanity, Humboldt Botanical Gardens Foundation, Manila Community Center, North Coast Rape Crisis, North Coast Syncro (swimmers), Redwood Coast Herbal Guild, St. Joseph Auxiliary (the first quilt) and Suzuki Summer Music Academy.

On the night the quilt is finished, after all the stiching and all the conversation, they put little slips of paper with the names of the nonprofits still to be selected into a hat. "We shake, stir and say funny words over this pile of paper scraps. Then one of us pulls the name out for the nonprofit the quilt will go to," said Werner.

"A few times as we have sat around finishing the quilt, our conversations focus on a certain social problem, a particular lesson we have learned or a blessing in our lives. It seems that many times what we have been collectively talking about as we stitch influences the forces, and a nonprofit name comes out of the hat reflecting that conversation.

"We are thrilled every time we see one of our quilts collecting money for a nonprofit. It is nice to know that our efforts are being turned into money for the groups that work so hard to provide services to our community. It is our way to help."

Werner would like other nonprofits to call if they would like a quilt to raffle. Leave a contact name of someone who would manage the raffle. Also, people are enthusiastically invited to join the quilting bee. Call Jan Werner at 707-668-4017.

Barbara Clark is editor of Senior News.