Edison UM Women make quilts and blankets for homeless at Christmas

By Alberta Stojkovic -

The Edi­son United Methodist Church pews were cov­ered in quilts and blan­kets last week when parish­ioners attended wor­ship ser­vices. The 37 quilts and blan­kets were made by the United Methodist Women’s group over the past year.

“We laughed because some­one com­mented that they must be turn­ing the heat down in the church — maybe we’re sup­posed to wrap up in these blan­kets,” said UMW mem­ber, Donna Osborn.

Chair­man of the group, Mar­jorie Gra­ham said that the blan­kets and quilts will go to home­less, Turn­ing Point Shel­ter, and the Sal­va­tion Army. She said the project started in 1979 and blan­kets have also gone to the Mor­row County Sheriff’s office for peo­ple in need. Gra­ham said there was a quilt­ing soci­ety in Edi­son for many years and their group is con­tin­u­ing the her­itage of that group.

Donna Osborn said the women usu­ally gather at Marjorie’s home where she has a room set up for sewing and quilt mak­ing. She pointed out that the quilts are made with bat­ting between the outer and inner cover for extra warmth.

Mar­jorie said she often likes to think about the peo­ple who may be using the quilts when she is shop­ping for the fab­ric. Some­times she even lies in bed at night and won­ders how they’re doing and if they’re keep­ing warm. She likes to watch for fab­rics such as ani­mal prints or funky pat­terns and col­ors that chil­dren and youth might enjoy.

“I espe­cially think about the chil­dren and youth and moth­ers out there and hope they’re keep­ing warm as I lay in bed at night,” Gra­ham said.

The women don’t con­fine their work to quilts and blan­kets. In the past years they have sent “Pil­low­case dresses” to Kenya and Haiti. They enjoy find­ing spe­cial lace and dec­o­ra­tions that the chil­dren there might appre­ci­ate on their dresses.

While many have helped sup­port the sewing projects at the Edi­son Church, some of the women who sew reg­u­larly are: Sharon Abrams, Janet Bed­well, Janet Burns, Mar­jorie Gra­ham, June Hawk, Betty Miley and Donna Osborne.

UMW mem­ber, June Hawk said that they got the idea when they attended church at Wind­fall. The women there had made quilts and cov­ered the pews with them.

“It really sur­prised our church mem­bers to see how many quilts we had made,” said Hawk. “They could hardly believe we made enough to cover all the pews.”

Posted by Randa Wagner on Dec 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.