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Project Linus
(Donna Bublitz explains the impact and importance of the Linus Project)
In the mid 90’s Karen Loucks Rinedollar saw a picture of a little girl with cancer in the newspaper and she thought of how a small child in the hospital would need a blanket, something to hold on to, to ease the trauma. So was born the idea to make blankets for these children, the victims of trauma.
With Charles Shultz’s permission to use his character Linus from the Peanuts Cartoon, she was off starting the army of people sewing and crocheting and knitting blankets. In about eleven years Project Linus has managed to give over a million blankets to hospitals, abuse shelters, fire and police departments, and other agencies who give them to the victims who need them.
In Maricopa County there are two coordinators. We have Judie Agee in the East Valley to help us in our efforts. She has many helpers who gather the blankets from the various clubs and from single donors. They deliver them to Judie and she takes them to the agencies that need them. There have been over 13,000 blankets delivered in Maricopa County alone.
Solera was lucky to have Loretta Benna move in. She had been making quilts for Project Linus for many years. She also had a dream of having a quilt club in Solera. She combined her two ideas, enlisted the help of several friends and started the Sew What Quilt Club. She taught various quilting processes and encouraged the new quilters to give quilts to Project Linus.
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judie agee of linus picking up quilt donations from solera
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When our club was incorporated it was as a non-profit club with the main aim to make quilts for Project Linus. The knitters and crocheters are also a big part of the club providing many of the blankets to Project Linus. In Solera, twenty-five persons contributed 200 blankets to the Project in 2006. Those blankets were then passed on to Maricopa County Medical Center, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, fire stations, trauma centers, and many other places that deal with children in need. ♥ ♥ ♥
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