Quilts for Kids Delivers the Goods

Quilts in my car

Today we delivered 95 quilts, 30 pillowcases and 17 fleece blankets to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin (CHoW).  We loaded them all up in my car and Bonnie's car. Due to the HIPAA rules, we dropped them off at the corporate center where we were met by the director of the Life Enrichment department. There was no way we were getting into the hospital near the children.

Quilts in Bonnie's car

The hospital staff were thrilled to receive the quilts. Throughout my quilty adventure with this group I learned a lot about the different volunteer organizations that like to donate goods.  So here's what I know. Quilts for Kids does just that quilts . period. The requirements are that they are to be made in new cotton fabrics, machine pieced, machine quilted and machine binded.  These quilts are designed for kids to be used and reused, washed and rewashed, over and over again. Even in an industrial machine in a hospital.  They must hold up.  They must be sturdy. 

Me, Renee and the Children's Hospital Director

There are other organizations that make knitted, crocheted, and/or fleece items and QfK does not allow those.  And it makes sense.  If a child is in a critical situation, anything fuzzy or itchy can cause issues. We did have 17 fleece blankets with us, but those are not tagged as Quilts for Kids sponsored items and the hospital agreed to accept them - they would send them over the the ER for their use.  They clearly wanted the quilts. 

After Renee, the Milwaukee chapter leader appeared on The Morning Blend and Fox Six -Milwaukee, she received donated sewing machines as well as fabric.  And the coolest thing happened, the hospital could really use a machine.  They were currently sharing one with the Ronald McDonald House so they would haul it back and forth between locations. And now they didn't have to share.  They could each keep a sewing machine at their own locations.  So we had that packed between the quilts as well. 

It was a very rewarding day, the response from the people at the hospital was worth the work.