Written by Kaiya Boll
The Garden Spot Village Quilters have long enjoyed donating their time to serving the culture of Garden Spot’s community and making beautiful quilts. But in addition to their usual crafting projects, they are also contributing their talents towards the Quilt of Valor Foundation to make quilts for veterans and service members. The inspiration for the project started last year, when the Garden Spot Village Quilters learned of the opportunity to express their gratitude to service members through the quilts they made. Last year, the Quilters presented the Quilt of Valor Foundation with two quilts, and they are currently working on making another quilt to donate in the fall.
The Quilts of Valor are designed to honor veterans and service members who have been impacted by the effects of war. The idea is to fully acknowledge the extent and commitment of the recipient’s service for their country, and the wrapping of the recipient in the quilt helps demonstrate appreciation and the promotion of healing in civilian life.
This year, the quilt will have a Flag of Freedom design, which allows for each participant to work on their own individual block before the blocks come together to create the quilt. Garden Spot Village Quilters has 17 participants working on this project, and they hope to have each block completed by the end of February. And as Sally Rapp says, “A community project takes time, and there are steps we have to go through to accomplish it.”
The process for creating these quilts requires a lot of coordination and hard work for participants. Each participant works on their own block with the quilt’s design. All the blocks must be trimmed perfectly to guarantee an even quilt and identical blocks. Once all the blocks are ready, the quilt is sent to a long arm quilter, who volunteers her time to machine quilt the quilt as an act of community service to the Quilt of Valor Foundation. The quilt then comes back to Garden Spot Village to be put on display until the Quilt of Valor Foundation can donate the quilt to a veteran or service member.
The Garden Spot Quilters are happy to be able to continue this project for the Quilts of Valor Foundation again this year, and this is a great opportunity for the group to use their talent to benefit a good cause. As Sally Rapp says, “We are a very giving community, and this is just another outreach.”