Wounded United States veterans who are enduring rigorous rehabilitation in Germany will soon receive special gifts, which were made 4,884 miles away by a group of Miami Lakes residents simply saying thanks for serving their country.
The Miami Lakes Quilters Club created a host of patriotic-designed blankets to help lift the soldiers’ spirits before they return home to a warm and hero’s welcome.
The group meets each Tuesday at the Mary Collins Community Center, where members pick a cause, topic or an event and then create quilts that reflect the images affecting people in hopes of brightening up their day.
Sally Whitten said a friend of the group, who’s a member of a quilters club in North Carolina, talked to her daughter, a nurse in Germany, and she thought it would be a good idea for soldiers to have quilts as a support gift while being nursed back to health.
“Our friend presented it to us,” said Whitten.
The Miami Lakes group went right to work, designing 18 of the best patriotic-designed coverlets, each with two layers of fabric with a layer of cotton, wool, feathers, which are all stitched firmly together.
The Miami Lakes Veteran Committee tentatively budgeted money to ship the quilts over to Germany, said group member Nancy Barton.
“It’s an opportunity to do something nice for our veterans,” she said.
The group, which has been around for 10 years, designed quilts for other occasions but the military project was a priority.
Normally it takes about two months to finish a quilt, but one month was all it took for the members to create the 18 coverlets with the different images of Old Glory.
“We sped up the process for the military because of the need for our veterans,” said Whitten.
Previously, the Miami Lakes Quilters designed quilts and sent them to people and cities who were struck by Hurricanes and other natural disasters, including the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
The group, comprised of retired school teachers, nurses and housewives, also designed quilts for homeless children and orphanages, and for high school and college graduates.
Toni Kavanagh said making the quilts is time consuming.
“But it’s fun and worth it,” she said. “It’s a wonderful feeling.”