Granny’s Quilts of Love warm hearts of ill children

Six years - 10,000 quilts

— “These wonderful women picked up the ball and carried it to 10,000 quilts,” Mary Margaret Webb, founder of Granny’s Quilts of Love, said.

In 2004, Webb and Pat Patterson made the first 61 quilts for children at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, after Webb spent 31 days there with her cancer-stricken granddaughter and wanted to do something more for the children who hadjust began living their lives and were already fighting for them.

Six years later, the group of about 30 grannies has reached an astounding 10,000 quilts craftedand delivered to the kids at ACH.

Webb’s granddaughter, Lindsey - also the granddaughter of another Granny’s member Margie Crowder - is now in remission after battling lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells.

“It’s something of their own, something they own,” Webb said.

After gathering and purchasing material - fabric, batting, thread and so on - the grannies take a selected number of quilt kits home and work on them on their own time. One member, Mildred Patton who is almost 90 yearsold, dropped off 50 pillows just that day.

“If you’ve got expertise, (one quilt) would take a couple hours. If you’re just learning, it would be longer,” Winona Wood said.

Excluding what the hours upon hours of labor would cost, one quilt costs from $20 - $25 to make.

The grannies meet once a month in Pea Ridge at Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, and hold one large fundraiser per year at Pea Ridge High School. At the fundraiser last August, the grannies served 350 people dinner. The group depends on that and donations to keep their generous operation going.

“I got $50 from a lady today ... It’s charity from the pit of their hearts,” Wood said.

Quilt number 10,000, made by Janita Prophet, is displayed proudly in Wood’s home - until it’s delivered to a child, that is.

Wood’s home is the landing pad for all the quilts until they are taken to Little Rock, hitchhiked as Wood calls it.

“(Reaching 10,000) was not a specific goal, the specific goal is to make a quilt for a sick child,” Wood said.

“You sit there and sew and look out the window at the birds or the snow falling. It’s a faceless, nameless, genderless sick child and if that doesn’t keep your tank full, you must have a hole in it,” Wood said.

“Do you sew? No? Well, what time do you get off?

We are always looking for members,” she said.

For more information on Granny’s Quilts of Love, call Mary Margaret Webb at 451-8640 or e-mail grannysquiltsoflove@gmail.

com.

News, Pages 1 on 04/21/2010