Quilts of Valor
 

Our guild is making Quilts of Valor. It is the first time we have done this as a group. We are trying to figure out what kind of an "event" to have to give them to the veterans, as we really want to honor them. The quilts will be displayed as a group as part of our Quilt Show, and we will give the quilts to the veterans at a later date.

At first we were going to give them out during one of our guild meetings. The plan was to also have a pot luck supper before we gave out the quilts and to skip the business meeting.

Now we have found out that our meeting place really isn't big enough to do this, as we have about 50 members who come to the meetings, and we will probably have 30 quilts to present. If each veteran brings one person, that is 110 people, and the small cafeteria we meet in at a local private school won't hold that many. The school doesn't have a larger room to rent us.

So now that we need to change locations, some members are also thinking a pot luck won't work and we should cater the meal. This is going to get expensive, and some of us are concerned about the cost of renting a room and catering a meal. Some of us think that cake and punch would be enough.

My question is how have presentations of Quilts of Valor been done in your guilds? I have researched online, but I can't find out much about actual presentations. I have really only found pictures of quilts being handed out to the vets or folded over chairs in anticipation of that.

Thanks for any information.

Dina

We have two local guilds that are very active in QOV. The regional (Southern AL/WIregrass area includes parts of FL and GA) is actually in both groups and a friend of mine. I have attended several presentations. If you want to present them yourselves, without official QOV representation, that is fine. However if you contact the organization, they have a lot of resources. The Lions Club usually hosts the dinner for ours, but the last presentation had 250 plus people (the presented special handicapped bikes from Wounded Veterans at this event as well) the dinner was catered but not paid for by our group. They even had about 60 Junior ROTC members in full uniform that presented the colors and sat 2 to a table throughout the room. I attended one presentation at Ft. Rucker with the regional rep and just 3 of us went to present quilts outdoors (they had a bbq and we were invited but we did not stay) That event was a turkey shoot on base. Several local organizations might be more than willing to help you host so the cost is not on your guild. Lions, Moose, VFW halls, etc should all be contacted before you spend your money, after all, you are donating the quilts.

I'm not in a guild, but maybe you could contact your local VFW. They may already have events planned that they could incorporate your presentation into. You could invite them to your quit show and then do your presentation at the VFW event. Or inf they don't have events planned, I'm sure they would help with such an event. Maybe even offer their space. The VFW loves when the community want to honor them!!

Thanks, good ideas.

Dina

A summertime picnic in a park would be ideal for something like this maybe around fourth of july?

our guild is giving appreciation quilts to all wartime vets in our county--with our scheduled presentation it will be well over 500 in 3 years. We hold the presentations either at the Legion, a local school, or in latest, a church as we don't want to pay for rent and we do cake/punch only. the presentation tends to take some time cause family members want to take pictures.

Again, thanks for the good ideas. I am going to pass them on to the committee looking into it.

Dina

www.qovf.org, which is the national website for Quilts of Valor. Each state usually has a coordinator or more, and you can ask for suggestions as to the best way to present such a nice number of quilts as you have. Good luck.

Here is your state coordinator: http://www.qovf.org/state_taxonomies/tx-2/ and here is her email: [email protected]. She should be able to answer all your questions.

We presented 14 Quilts of Valor the last day of our quilt show this spring in the high school theater. Vets were seated on stage. For the presentation, the Vet came forward and stood center stage (or his wheel chair was wheeled up to the front. Two people carried the quilt toward him or her, showed the quilt for a few seconds and folded the top third down to the back. Then the maker walked around the vet and draped the quilt around the Vet's shoulders. A tear jerker for sure. The high school theater was more than half full.

The show took up the gymnasium, the commons and the cafeteria. The theater was across the hall.