Originally Posted by AnnieF

I belong to a charity quilting group who make quilts to be given away to women's shelters and babies in a local hospital as well as sick church members. We are affiliated and receive a small stipend from the church (it's usually enough to buy a bolt of batting each year)...it is not my church but everyone is welcome to come and quilt....and we use space in the church hall for our meetings. Our leader was the driving force, as she is a quilting teacher. She conceived the idea and brought it to her church as a social ministry. She offers to teach anyone how to quilt at our meetings on the first and third Sundays of the month from 2:00-5:00 (and most members come to us without any sewing experience). The requirement is that anything made during those 3 hours is donated to the social ministry. It also helps that our leader has a long arm and quilts most of the ones completed by our members. Some of us quilt our own, but she does most of them. We started out using our own stashes, but the church will put out a plea for useable cotton fabric to be donated 3 or 4 times a year. What had developed from her idea is the most active social ministry within her church. It has been a wonderful experience for me as I now have 20 or 25 new friends, we have expanded to monthly "quilt til you drop" Friday night events where you bring your own stuff to sew or quilt and stay from 6:00 til midnight. We use this as a "fund raiser" as one of the members will make dinner for us all and attendees donate $5 or $10 to the kitty for their dinner. We even have a "quilt away" weekend...just for the members to socialize. Now we have further expanded to knitting and crocheting as some members like to come and socialize but don't sew. They make crocheted afghans or baby layettes.