Charity Quilting
 

I don' know if this is the right place to post this question but here it is. Has anyone worked with for headed up a chapter for Project Linus or Quilts for Kids? Is there a lot of time and work involved other then the quilting? I would like to do some LA quilting for charity but there are no local chapters in my area of Northeast Texas. Anyone have any advise?

write or call headquarters and see what's up with them and their rules and regulations.

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.

There is always a great demand for the help of LAQs for charity quilts. I had a pile of UFOs for foster kids and a friend of mine hooked me up with a newbie LAQ. I am so delighted to be getting these quilts finished and shipped off.

Thanks for your comments. I would rather do the quilting than all the admin work. I will still look around locally through the quilt quild or elsewhere for charity work.

I was a Linus contributor. Our cordinater auit after trying for 4 yrs to find a replacement. She said she had no time to do any quilting with all the admin work. I now just donate to local WIC program through the health department. They do not have any rules on size or theme. Most of mine are about 42" x 45". I skip the batting and use polar fleece as backing. Provides enough weight and is cuddly, also improves washability.

Our Linus group has a volunteer that is a professional long armer. Since she has a professional business, she doesn't have time to attend our weekly get togethers to sew, but we would love to have her if she ever has the chance to attend. She completes about 3-4 quilts per month for us and that is such a big relief. Thats 20 hours of time we can be working on other quilts. Further, we really appreciate how much she elevates our work. We love her!

I would still contact Linus headquarters to see if anyone else in your area is interested in starting a Chapter. You might find that there is already a coordinator for your region of the state, even though you don't have a local chapter. Our coordinator has a large district which encompasses many volunteer groups. Our group just does quilting, but other groups do crocheting and fleece blankets. Our coordinator collects blankets from all of these different groups and delivers them to 22 different organizations in the area. That is one reason that she has to work so many more hours.

In our local group, we don't really have a named leader. There is one lady who works with our group to get the quilts to the coordinator and presents us with any PL business. She doesn't put in 30 hours a week for admin stuff. She probably puts in an hour or two on most weeks and then when we have about 30-40 quilts, she will deliver them to our coordinator. Sometimes there are special events in the area that take a bit more work such as if there is a conference in town that wants to set up a PL room. That only happens maybe once a year. We have another lady who handles the weekly announcements (where the meeting will be held), list of quilts, and the email list of members. We have another lady that works with the two of them to handle everything else. Like I said, our group doesn't have named leaders, we just have several women pitching in to help everything go smoothly. I'm sure other groups are more structured, but that wouldn't work for our group.

If there is no coordinator, you could also contact other quilters in your area to see if someone else would like to be the coordinator that organizes the group.

I would hate to see you discouraged because you don't want to start the chapter. I'm willing to bet someone in your area would love to do the admin work. Remember, we also get blankets that are crocheted and fleece. So your group could be just quilters or all types of blanketeers. Your pool to recruit from is larger than you may think.

Good luck!

I found a woman who makes hundreds of donation quilts for veterans and hospice. She was trying to quilt all these quilts on her domestic machine. After we met she would make the tops and put batting and backing with them while I did the LA quilting. She, together with her quilting guild, also finished the binding. She is currently taking care of her mother so things slowed down.

Then after my DD had triplets and I saw the need for NICU quilts for preemies. I got involved with that. I get help from a local friend and from online friends. http://www.quiltingboard.com/request...s-t251900.html People either send me finished quilts and or tops. Some people have also donated fabric and batting. This is important as batting, thread and fabric cost can get prohibitive very soon.

Yes, I can easily spend 30 hours a week but much of it is on the actual quilting, both on the long arm and putting the quilt together. Soon I did not have much time to do my own quilts. I am currently working on balancing the two.

Previously I signed up with multiple groups that do donation quilts but none ever contacted me to do LA quilting. Several did want to know if my LA was computerized. It is not. I do free motion hand guided quilting and have an Innova 26 in. with lightening stitch on a 12 feet frame. I am not sure if I did not get contacted because my machine is not computerized or if they just did not need more LA quilters.

For now the NICU donation quilts keep me plenty of busy. So you might consider contacting your local hospital or hospice and do something similar. Fortunately both for the veterans, hospice and NICU quilts there are no strict guidelines. This really helps in finding people to come alongside and help.

Many of the NICU donation quilt tops I finish and quilt on a regular sewing machine as they are so small. I could lay many as a group on a long arm and have it done that way too.

Please feel free to pm me.

I am the assistant coordinator for our local chapter of Project Linus, and I would be thrilled to death to meet a long arm quilter who was willing to help us out from time to time. Our members have various skill levels (and that's fine), so some quilts are quilted and some are tied and some are..some just are.

I would think you'd be able to donate your services without having to start a chapter. Have you checked the Project Linus website to see if there's a chapter near you? Plus, I think in Texas there is an offshoot called Linus Project?

I think it's great you want to help in this way!

If not working with a local organization, you must also consider the shipping costs.

I work with a local chapter of Quilts4Kids.....I can't afford the postage to mail things so I make a bunch and deliver them to a lady that hands them off to a coordinator who has arranged to have things delivered to various charities....I am sure there should be a local chapter of Linus that would LOVE to work with you....Google your questions.....

I belong to two local guilds, and each of them have charity groups. One makes kid quilts for homeless shelters and for one shelter for abused women. The other makes quilts for Quilts of Valor and for the VA hospital, especially wheelchair quilts. Another guild not too far from us donates quilts to the fire and police departments, and another donates preemie quilts to a NICU. Also, the school district we are located in has a program to teach expectant teen moms life skills, especially in infant care, and we donate quilts which are given to the new babies. I also saw a website for making activity quilts for Alzheimer's patients, which could be delivered to nursing homes where they have Alzheimer's patients.

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.

There is always the option to provide lap quilts to nursing homes, or quilts to hospice patients. Another option is to work with your local law enforcement persons to provide small quilts for children who must be taken from their parents and placed in a foster care situation. A small quilt of their own can be very comforting at a time like this.

There may not be a Linus chapter in your area, but I'll bet there is some sort of charity quilting group that you can find if you dig around a bit. Maybe talk to some of the bigger churches. In our area, the Baptist Church has a great charity group. We have two long arm quilters in the group and they let us use their machines for a minimal fee. We donate to children's homes, Crisis Pregnancy centers (for babies and their siblings), Children's hospitals, as well as adult donations for cancer patients, transplant patients, and pretty much any one we hear about who needs to be given a quilt. I love my group!

Texas just do your own thing and quilt your will find an outlet for them, no problem. Check out local outlets like you local doctors surgery, hospitals etc. you don't have to be in an organization to give. I am a Project Linus coordinator in North Wales UK and I don't do as much as other branches do because I like to do my quilting, butevery little bit or quilt helps :)