BLANKETING SLAVE LAKE WITH LOVE

First let me introduce myself. My name is Linda Beeston and I own Patchwork Fabrics a Quilt Shop in Slave Lake ,Alberta. Many of you have probably heard about the horrible wildfire that ravaged our town May 15th,2011. The fire forced the population of 7000 to evacuate and it was nearly two weeks later before we were allowed to return . Both my home and business were spared and almost instantly I knew I needed to do something to help those who had lost their homes. I had attended the Edmonton Quilt Guild meeting with my sister in law while staying with her during the time we were evacuated and knew they had right away put the word out to their members if they wanted to donate to drop off quilts with Pat White who owns Sew Devine. She had so graciously offered her store as the drop-off place and knowing this I contacted her to see if she had a plan for distributing these quilts.I explained what I was hoping to do and she allowed me to pick up the first 96 quilts from her the following weekend.By then I had named the project 'BLANKET SLAVE LAKE WITH LOVE one quilt at a time and had started collecting names of people who had lost their homes. I had also decided that these quilts would need to be delivered to the ones who had lost their homes by close family,friends,neighboursor co-workers.My goal is for each of the 732 households to receive a quilt as well as each child in the household(I have estimated that there are probably 800 - 1000 children)To date we have received over 400 quilts and have handed out over 300 to their new owners. The quilts donated so far have come in from Alberta,Saskatchewan,Ontario and B.C.. The numbers are huge and we need many more quilts to achieve this big feat. If you or your group are able to help out please contact me at 780-849-6464 . You can leave a message anytime and I will gladly get back to you.