Originally Posted by
Daylesewblessed
I was a Project Linus coordinator for a few years, and I spent about 30 hours/week doing it. Unfortunately, after becoming coordinator, I had very little time to do any quilting. In addition to administrative work, delivering blankets, setting up meetings, etc., I spent a lot of time mending and washing some of the donations that came in. However, I must say that the coordinatorship was very rewarding work, and I gained skills in non-profit leadership.
How much work there is to being a Project Linus coordinator depends on several factors. The size of the local organization and the number of volunteers makes a difference. The local chapters of Linus have very little structure and have only one person who is accountable (the coordinator). It is the coordinator's responsibility to recruit, train, and delegate work to volunteers. The more successful he/she is with that, the smoother the chapter will function and the more it will grow. With growth comes more work. There is a big difference in handling 50 blankets/month compared to 250!
I believe that projectlinus.org has a section of the website addressing interest in starting chapters.
I strongly believe in the Linus mission and continue to be a blanketeer, but I am happy to now have time to make quilts for other charities also.
I had to laugh a little when I saw this post. I got recruited by our local Linus Project Chapter through the quilt guild I belonged to. Our local Linus Chapter produces between 800 and 1000+ quilt donations a month. We have one coordinator who handles stuff on the national level and a helper who records all of the donations and acts as the drop off and pick up place. She also provides her generous family room for our monthly sort. Ironically our local county has only one hospital. We always make sure they get at least 100+ quilts a month. The rest are distributed to hospitals in the Baltimore metro area. We have a number of volunteers who pick up the quilts after they are sorted and take them to the Baltimore hospitals. For most of those volunteers it is probably a 60 mile round trip. I don't know about other chapters but our volunteers make a lot of blankets by crocheting an edge around pieces of polar fleece. We also have lots of volunteers who make beautiful blankets by crocheting or knitting. I make both the fleece ones and others made from very large scale pieced blocks or kid friendly panels that I then machine quilt at least 4" apart. It has been my experience that many of the families who receive the Linus Quilts don't know how to care for handwork. That is why I make mine colorful and simple. I probably have 100 thank you notes I have received from grateful children or families of children. Being involved with Linus gives me an excuse to purchase more fabric and supplies without so much guilt. My own grandchildren and children all have quilts that I made just for them.