It has been such a fun week hanging out with fellow art quilters and textile artists at the SAQA annual conference, which featured the work (and studios!) of Australian and New Zealand quilters. Many thanks to everyone who worked hard to put on this event. We look forward to an IN-PERSON event in St Petersburg Florida in April 28 – May 1, 2022. If you are interested in making art quilts and don’t know about SAQA, google ‘Studio Art Quilt Associates’ and join us!
If you’ve been with eQuilter for awhile, no doubt you are aware of our charity program which is approaching a total of $1.8 million raised for our list of non-profits. Today I met with 2 special people from 2 of those organizations.
The founder of Engineers Without Borders (Bernard) is also an engineering professor here at CU Boulder. We also have a friend (Tom) who is a retired administrator for Doctors Without Borders. Both of them have spent a lot of time working in refugee camps, and dealing with poverty and healthcare challenges in troubled countries. The 3 of us have resumed our monthly lunches where we share stories and ideas about how to make the world a better place.
We have an ISS astronaut friend who has moved to Boulder in the last year, who is also a member of EWB, so hope to have him join us next time after the launch of his book “Floating in Darkness”, which is about his time on the Intl Space Station. Ron Garan’s book is being released on May 4th, so we have to assume he is a fellow Star Wars nerd. (May the Fourth be with you….) Ron called Bernard from the space station to wish him a happy birthday a few years ago, but he missed the call! Darn!
Anyway, those are the kind of stories we share at lunch. We have a shared passion for supporting organizations who are working for World Peace, which includes engineering projects to help promote peace in troubled regions, and helping refugees who have lost their homes due to conflict. That is why these non-profits are 2 of the 7 charities you will see listed, when you finish up your eQuilter order.
As Margaret Mead wrote:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world;
indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
with hope for the future,
Luana and Paul
