My neighbor and I have for 8 years or so been quilting 2x/month for charity with a floating assortment of other temporary workers. We have made donations to Project Linus, Red Cross lap quilts for Srs, Home nursing service, foster care children, Christmas"adopt-a-family" programs and "Snoopy quilts" for the ASPCA.
At first, we purchased everything, but now we get a lot of fabric donations, so we buy batting and thread. We use very simple piecing, often with large pieces. For a long while we had one person who tied all the quilts, but she is doing other things now, so I am practicing freehand machine quilting on these. (There's a new challenge for me!)
We enjoy the comraderie, the giving, the chance to "recycle" unwanted fabric by using our creativity.