Quilts of Valor is a national nonprofit organization that is comprised of women and men of all ages, who sew quilts and award them to veterans that have been touched by war. The organization was founded in 2003 by, Catherine Roberts, the mother of a son that was deployed to Iraq. These are her words and her inspiring dream as written on the QOV web page.
“The dream was as vivid as real life. I saw a young man sitting on the side of his bed in the middle of the night, hunched over. The permeating feeling was one of utter despair. I could see his war demons clustered around, dragging him down into an emotional gutter. Then, as if viewing a movie, I saw him in the next scene wrapped in a quilt. His whole demeanor changed from one of despair to one of hope and well-being. The quilt had made this dramatic change. The message of my dream was: Quilts=Healing.” To date, 333,960 quilts have been awarded since 2003.
There is an annual quilt block drive associated with this organization. Throughout the country and overseas anyone that is interested may sew a single quilt block or and many as they would like and mail them to the national headquarters. A pre-chosen block pattern is picked, and instructions can be printed from their website, http://www.qovf.org. Anyone is welcome to sew the blocks and get them to the Foundation. During the 2022 drive over 6000 blocks have been mailed in. With that total, there should be at least enough blocks to make 300 quilts. A new drive has already begun for 2023.
Panhandle Piecemakers Quilt Guild chose to participate in the 2022 drive. With the changing of officers in June, new President, Debbie Black, brought the idea of participating in the drive, to the group. The idea was well received. In a brief 6 months, the group stitched 38 patriotic blocks and mailed them the end of December. PPQG proudly supports America and her Veterans.
