There are so many opportunities to make quilts for charity. Quilts are used to support, comfort, and help those who have or are going through hardship. Quilts are also used to celebrate milestones and bring hope to those in need.
8 Quilting Charities
1. Around this time every year, I ask my local friends to help me pick the fabric for a quilt that I will make for charity. This quilt will be donated to the Clearwater for Life Lunch and Auction. It will be auctioned off to benefit our local Fyndout Free Pregnancy Center. Fyndout Free pregnancy centers across the country need and will accept donations of quilts.
2. Local quilt guilds will usually have a cause they help support in their local area. The Forget-Me-Knot Quilters Guild in my local area gives quilts to anyone who has lost their home due to fire. Sadly every year someone loses a home due to fire.
Other quilt guilds offer quilts for their local hospitals. They will make quilts to give to the hospital maternity ward for women who have suffered through a miscarriage or stillbirth.
3. Quilt shops like Fat Quarter Shop will host every year a quilt-along to benefit the Make a Wish Foundation. The Make A Wish foundation grants wishes to children who have been diagnosed with a critical illness.
4. Missouri Star Quilt Co. and the large quilting community that follows them aided in sending quilts for disaster relief after hurricane Harvey hit the coast of Texas and then two other hurricanes hit Florida and the islands in the Caribbean.
5. Fabric designer Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings has hosted a stitch along to raise money to benefit Hogs for Heroes. They give Wisconsin veterans who have been hurt by active duty military service a motorcycle.
6. The batting company Quilters Dream hosts a challenge every year to bring awareness to ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease. They raise money for research and also give quilts to people that have been diagnosed with ALS.
7. The Quilts of Valor organization has been founded on the premise that veterans that have been touched by war deserve a handmade quality quilt. It is a way to say, “Thank you for your sacrifice to protect us and our nation.”
8. I know many quilters that personally give to so many people in some way or another. Whether that be a memory quilt of a loved one that has passed away. Or a quilt for a newlywed couple, high school graduate, or a new baby on the way.
Quilts are more than just fabric and thread. They say something to the person being given the quilt. You are not forgotten or alone. You are cherished and valued. It lets that person know that while you were making that quilt for them, you were thinking of them the entire time that quilt was being made.
Be encouraged and know that you can be part of the positive change in this world. You can be part of the reason that someone has the hope, courage, and strength to keep going.
I am sure I have missed some charitable contributions that quilters, quilt companies, and quilt organizations make regularly. Please let me know in the comments below which ones I have missed. So I or someone else can take part in the effort.
