Senior News February, 2002 Vol. 21. No.  2

 

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.

Eureka's gift to New York: Coast to Coast Quilters reach out to families in need

Remembering spirit: The Olympic Flame

Support the Senior Legislature: Remember Line 53 on your tax form

School superintendent

Sheriff candidates

Del Norte County: Humboldt man commutes to teach computers to visually impaired

Bladder Fitness #4 Change your foods, change your life

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Eureka's gift to New York
Coast to Coast Quilters reach out to families in need
by Cathy Mitchell

Coast to Coast Quilters Cecile Clabaugh, Susan Clemenza, Ronda Hanson and Kathi Branum prepare quilts to be shipped to the American Red Cross Family Compassion Center in New York City. Clemenza, director of the group, is co-owner of Boyd Sewing and Vacuum of Eureka. Photo by Linda Nellist, American Red Cross

There's a healing comfort in touch, and some of the families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11 received that comfort from a group of quilters in Eureka. Coast to Coast Quilters, under the leadership of Susan Clemenza, co-owner of Boyd Sewing and Vacuum, this fall created 163 quilts and sent them to New York City.

"We had several ladies who said they couldn't be at home watching TV. It just made them cry," explained Clemenza. "So, on September 16 they gathered and started making quilts. Many residents of the Eureka area and surrounding communities, and even the Eureka Police Officers Association, contributed funds for shipping costs."

Some volunteers came to quilt every day. "We even had those who don't know how to sew come and help," said Clemenza. "We also contacted the Humboldt County Chapter at the beginning of the project to get an address for the Red Cross Center in New York. Linda Nellist provided information that helped us send the quilts to those who needed them most."

On Dec. 11, the quilts were folded into ten large boxes and shipped to the Red Cross Disaster Service Center in New York City, a site set up to aid grieving families. Red Cross Mental Health Workers gave a quilt to a family often at the same time that the family received an urn containing dirt scrapings from the World Trade Center site.

Lorraine Llamas, a Red Cross caseworker, gave a quilt to the cousin of a widow who had just given birth. "She was home nursing the baby and he came to handle some financial issues. When he first came in, he was so quiet and serious, but then I asked him if he would like to take a quilt to the new baby, and he grinned from ear to ear. He picked a big pink quilt covered with cupids. He said the baby was a girl, and she was a big girl!"

The Red Cross workers were in awe of the detail that went into the quilts. "These were carefully handmade," said Naomi Mandsager, a volunteer counselor from Oregon. When a family took their quilt in their hands, she said, she could see a change. She could see that they really felt nurtured.

"It's important that the people in Eureka be thanked for this donation," said Ken Joy, a Mental Health worker from Indiana. "What they did meant a lot to the families, and it meant a lot to those of us who are working here."

"I was amazed when I opened those crates and saw all the beautiful quilts," said Phil Harmon, a Red Cross worker from Oklahoma. He, too, wanted to be sure that the Eureka quilters understood how appreciated their contribution was.
One quilt occupied a special place of honor. Most of the quilts were four-foot by four-foot lap quilts, but this one was a large bed quilt in the log cabin pattern of Sunshine and Shadows. Mental Health workers decided to use this large quilt to add comfort to the counseling room where the presentation of the urns took place. To add a human dimension to the cubical, Mental Health workers draped this quilt on the wall. Because it played a role in the grieving process of so many families, that one quilt has been held back. It will be kept in the archives as part of the historical record of the World Trade Center disaster.

Because of the generosity of the American people, sufficient in-kind donations have been received to assist the victims of the September 11th attacks. People wishing to assist in other ways can contact their local chapter for more information or visit the Internet site, www.redcross.org.

Cathy Mitchell is a journalism professor from Asheville, NC, who volunteered with American Red Cross Public Relations at the Family Compassion Center in New York City. Local organizations which helped this project were Interstate Batteries, Brewer Sewing Supply and Eureka Police Officers Association.