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Donating Quilts

Any of you readers want to share where you donate quilts?  Several of my readers have asked about donation opportunities.  There are so many who need quilts not only to keep them warm but to show them that someone cares about them.

Most of the quilts I make are in the 60″ x 80″ range so I don’t give a lot to Project Linus, Ronald McDonald House, etc., though those are very worthy charities.

My preferences are:

  1. Orphanages where bright, cheerful quilts are given to the children.
  2. Quilts of Valor – you can check these out at the official QOV site or one of our fellow bloggers, Alycia, is collecting quilts for this project too.
  3. Another fellow blogger, Mary, has the Heartstrings project.  And, speaking of Mary, she has lots of free patterns on her website, MaryQuilts.
  4. Local needs – there are always families within our four states area needing comfort due to accidents, fire, tornadoes.

If you have a favorite venue for donating quilts, will you share it in a comment and you can leave a link in the comment.

Even though winter is almost past (I hope), there’s still a need for donated quilts so . . if you can, please do! 🙂

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. My favorite places to donate quilts are local, area nursing homes, all the large childrens hospitals in St Louis and my 60X90 size quilts go to the St Louis Shriners. I also give to His Kids which is kids with cancer, thru one of my guilds. There is much need and just not enough of us to get these quilts out to everyone.
    Bev/Mo

  2. We have had luck with the State Police and fire departments taking them. The State Police carry them in the trunk for use if kids have to be removed from a home (domestic situations) or at the scene of fires and accidents to wrap around those victims who are not in a medical crisis but need some comfort on the scene. Another place we have donated them is to the local cancer treatment center….lap-sized and throw-sized….for chemo patients to use during their treatments and then take home (and many, supposedly, then bring their quilt to their subsequent treatments).

    • Pat.,
      Thank you for this wonderful gift you give. My son received a blanket when he was going through cancer treatment and he did become very attached to it. He would always bring it with him to his treatments, even into the Operatong Room when he needed surhery. My son was only thirteen months old when he started treatment. I guess he related the blanket with the hospital, but somehow knew he would be ok and his blanket would be there when he woke up again.

      Again , thank you and all the wonderful angels like yourself that in these situations offer children (patients and victim) some comfort.

  3. I donate children’s quilts – in the 42×65″ range. My primary donation site is Mission of Hope which supplies quilts to battered women/children’s shelters around the USA. This program is handled through TheQuiltingPost a yahoo group list.

    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sunshine/ is another of my favorite places to donate as they send quilts to WTIL (Wrap Them in Love) and to WAS (Wrap a Smile – through the Rotary clubs nationwide).

    I also have donated to the local fire department (small comfort quilts) that go to children in burn out or traffic accident situations. I’ve donated quilts to the Mission for the homeless…they prefer heavier, really sturdy quilts as these people are on the streets. great place to use denim, corduroy and twills. If you enjoy making smaller quilts, check with the hospitals and nursing homes in your area. They nearly always can use wheelchair lap quilts.

  4. Alycia’s Project, Isolette size quilts for preemie units, lap size go to the local cancer hospital. I just sent a quilt to Australia for the Bushfire Quilt Project. (they had a mailing address here in the US) Veteran’s hospital that has a long term inpatient unit. And some go to Project Linus. I usually make quilts that are about twin size.

  6. I donate to Linus… They will pick up if you call them, They also like knited crocheted & fleece throws.. EVERYONE can help ! kid clubs can do it.

    Most all the local churches have a need. Homes for Humanity they surely like a nice quilt or lap throw in a New Home.

  7. I have little time to make donation quilts since I became a Project Linus coordinator last October. Most of our Project Linus chapter’s blankets (quilts, afghans and fleece) go to local hospitals for use in the ER, surgery, pediatrics, newborn nursery and NICUs (preemie babies). We deliver to one women’s shelter every month and to other shelters and the police on an irregular basis.

  8. We have a group here that meets once a month and we make quilts for children going into foster care, mostly baby or lap size. They get to pick out a quilt. Most of our fabric is donated by others. So we have quite a stash now. One of the ladies cut up the fabrics and made kits out of them and we had alot of women sewing up those kits. We also donated larger sizes to families who have lost their homes to fires. We also make pillowcases with hygiene kits inside for them to take to their new homes.

  10. My current focus is on
    http://www.hopetotes.org/
    My initial goal is to make 12 quilts–they provide them for children up to age 6. And, I am also making 12 tote bags to start, and then will continue more after that in between other projects. The tote bags are for children of all ages in these shelters, and in the foster care program. I’m spreading the word about this organization in my community, to get more people involved.
    I realize that this is an organization with limited service areas, but I did notice several other comments from people making quilts for the same sort of situations.

    Oh–and our little local quilt guild makes quilts for families receiving new homes in the Habitat for Humanity program.

  11. Our guild makes an average of 100 quilts each year and donates them to the sheriff’s department as comfort quilts for all ages. Some are quilted, some are tied. We have fabric donated to the guild all the time and devote 1 or 2 meetings each year to construct and tie quilts. The committee also prepares kits which the members take home with them to finish.

  13. Our guild donates quilts to the pediatric oncology unit at Georgetown Hospital in Washington DC. Every newly diagnosed child gets a quilt. We started this after one of our members’ son was diagnosed with leukemia 10 years ago. Happy to say, after a long road, he is doing great now.

  14. I donate mine to Frontier Missions, located in Troutdale,OR. You could look them up on the internet to see if other areas accept donations. This is an organization that services Indian Tribes in the Northwest.

  15. online yahoo group, quilterswhocare, do quilts and they are taken to ft. hood , TX
    for incoming wounded soldiers, we use to do Brooke Army Medical Center until they had new rules for colors, and we didnt want to stop doing whatever we could for them. My Austin Quilt Guild still makes them in red,white and blue for Brooke. I make baby quilts also for the Austin Quilt Guilds Baby Bundles group, and my local bee makes quilts to donate in Dec. to the Elgin, Tx., advocacy center. I really ONLY do charity quilts.

  16. Rumpled Quilts, Patterson, La. and Cane Cutters, Houma La. make and donated quilts to Wounded Soldiers Brigade at Fort Hood Tx. and American Heros Quilts in Bremerton Wash. Locally we make quilts to an orphanage Mc Donald Home in Houma and Chez Hope a battered womens shelter inFranklin, La. Sue

  17. The local quilt group (300 members) make Cuddle quilts and Angel quilts. The Cuddle quilts go to the police, fire department and hospitals for children in stressful situations. These are usually colorful roughly crib-size and some ladies try particularly to make masculine ones since there’s generally plenty that are feminine. Also the NICU here accepts crib-size quilts to throw over the incubators to shield the babies in the units from noise and light.

    The tiny Angel quilts go to hospitals to be used for babies who die and for their family to have a keepsake. Sometimes these are left at the hopsital by the parents but they’re held for a year in case they change their minds and ask for them later.

    Occasionally there will be requests for twin size bed quilts for halfway houses or foster homes and there will be a special get together to whip these together at the quilter’s resource room.

    In the fall Holiday stockings are made, usually as a challenge competition, which are then filled with goodies and taken to the local friendship homes.

  18. It’s so interesting to read where everyone donates their quilts. One of the things I love about HeartStrings is that our quilts are typically donated by the quilter who finishes them in their community to an individual or organization of their choosing. As a result, our quilts go to a number of different groups. I personally donate the ones I finish to Project Linus, Ronald McDonald House, Quilts of Valor, and many to individuals who are fighting illness or have had some disaster or misfortune.

  19. Lutheran World relief sends them to third world countires and also to US relief efforts. 60×80 is the preferred size. They don’t have to be of small squares or of really nice fabric…large pieces, polyester and tied rather than stitched are all fine. Great guilt free use of “what was I thinking” and donated polyester fabric, old sheets. We get donated fabric and put them together at church. Instructions for donating here:
    http://www.lwr.org/beinvolved/quilts.asp

  20. http://www.americanheroquilts.com

    This is where I donate the larger quilts , they take all red/white/blue combinations, it could be a red/white, it could be a blue/white. just so its RWB. These are given to the wounded soldiers at the military hospital. Its is NOT a political group, but simply quilters who are mothers/sisters/daughters etc who care for the men and women who come home wounded and need to feel our love wrapped around them. They will take blocks, fabrics, tops, finished quilts, just read their directions for size request.

  22. I also contribute to Project Linus. They also need people to cut 8 inch squares out of muslin. White or off white. They have kids paint pictures on them that can be incorporated into quilts. Pam

  23. Not too long ago I posted about our Needle “n Eye-(small group) about places we donate quilts for. But now I want to tell you all about yesterday at My Applique Club meeting, one of our members (Bev) had shown us this quilt some of her church members and her were making for a church member that had found out he had very advanced cancer and wouldn’t be here much longer. -I mean like 2 0r 3 weeks- These girls got together and whipped up a quilt-very nice- and on the back everyone in the church signed it and there were some pictures of him and one of him and his wife. Bev presented it to them a week ago at Church and was telling them all about it-then the tears started–Bev said that she wants them to go home and for him to put his favorite cologne on and curl up in that quilt and take a nap, so when he leaves-when his wife gets sad and thinking of him, she can get that quilt and curl up in it herself and his sent will be there for her to help comfort her.

    Of course all of us at the meeting were bawling even tho we don’t know him or his wife. Bev said he went into a coma a few days ago , but is still here-( at home with hospice) but not for long.
    I will for long think about this. Hugs, Bobbie

  24. One of the guilds I belong to regularly donates quilts to the local hospital NICU. The other guild recently made quilts for Home with Hope, and the Cary Home for Girls.

  25. I have made quilts for our Amerian Legion Aux, than they bring them to a veteran Hospital, a few times a year. Stated making placemat size quilts for our local animal shelter cattery,

  26. I donate as many quilts as I can to our local Hospital’s NICU. My daughter was in the NICU when she was born and waiting there for her was a hand made quilt. It was so nice to have something so special in such a sterile environment. When we finally got to bring her home, the quilt came too. It will always be a cherished keepsake. Hopefully my quilts can make another family feel less alone and helpless.

  27. We quilt for 3 different places. The VA hospital, Hannah’s Place (abused women) and the local hospital’s chemo section. The patients get cold during treatments and our quilts not only warmed them but cheered them up that strangers would do this for them.

  28. I’ve read the above comments, but have seen few recommendations on getting quilts to teenagers, who can definitely use those 60″ x 80″ and a little bit larger quilts. State and County foster programs have many foster “children” from age 12 through 18, male and female, who have *almost nothing to call their own,* having been bounced from pillar to post and back again many times. Please think of them, too. Just look online or in your phone book for your county government foster program. => I don’t think quilters can “cover” all the needs out there, but it’s certainly not for lack of trying! Most of my own finishes are donation quilts, only a few are personal/family quilts.

  29. Our group, about 15 girls, donate quilts to our Local Children’s Aid Society, ( they are distributed by the workers and each label has a spot left open for the childs name to be printed in fabric pens. These children are the ones going into foster care, so sometimes, that little quilt, will be the only thing he or she has that “belongs” to them. It is a very rewarding endeavor.

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