March 16, 2022:
Thank you for offering to help with our quilt drive for Ukraine:
If you wish to donate a quilt for these Ukrainian refugee families, you have 2 options:
Drop off in person, at the eQuilter warehouse in Boulder Colorado.
If you need to ship the quilts, send directly to Mission of Love and be sure to get a tracking number if you want a confirmation of receipt. MOL is an all-volunteer organization which means they do not have somebody to send package acknowledgements or thank you notes. We thank you for your understanding.
Ship to:
Mission of Love
2054 Hemlock Ct, Youngstown, OH 44515
PLEASE NOTE: Do NOT try to call Mission of Love.
They are crazy busy trying to organize the shipments! If you have questions please call or email eQuilter.
SIZE: Imagine what size quilt you would want if you had no home and were living in close quarters as a refugee. We suggest a large lap quilt, a twin coverlet or full/double size quilt. We are not picky about exact specs or fancy quilting. We just ask that you at least do stitch-in-the-ditch quilting. (Not a ‘tied’ quilt blanket.) This way the quilt will last longer!
Feel free to put a label with your name and a message of encouragement on the back of the quilt. Send it off with a prayer that the recipient will feel your love and support, that is sewn into every stitch.
March 9, 2022: As quilters, our first reflex is always to make quilts for those in need. At this moment the need for food, water, and housing, is the most urgent need for these escaping families. We have had inquiries about sending comfort quilts to Ukrainian refugees, and tonight I have confirmation that we will work with Mission of Love to ship and distribute your donated comfort quilts to those who had to leave home with so little.
This afternoon I got this response from Kathy:
“YES YES YES – tomorrow morning I will be delivering 23,000 lbs of rice to go to New Jersey and then into Ukraine. Next week I will also be delivering medical and humanitarian aid to them. I will be in touch tomorrow after I deliver the rice.”
Mission of Love is a volunteer non-profit run by Kathy Price. You may recall that I traveled to Guatemala with MOL and a team of surgeons some years ago. Together with Mission of Love we have collected, shipped and distributed over 15,000 donated comfort quilts around the world, over the last 22 years. Through our eQuilter charity program, we have support MOL relief efforts after hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, fires and earthquakes. We have supported MOL building foster homes, hospices and clinics…for indigenous people, orphans, and those affected by natural disasters.
Mission of Love is the largest single user of the Denton Program, which uses military cargo planes to ship disaster relief, food and medical supplies around the world, without charge. I know these planes were all in use last week, ferrying supplies to Europe. (i.e. not available for Denton shipments) Last week Kathy sent a batch of Ohio quilts along with emergency relief supplies, in a container on a commercial airliner. This kind of shipping is very expensive so we are hoping to use the Denton Program for the larger shipments to Ukraine refugees. I don’t have all the details yet but I’ll share more information in the Saturday night e-newsletter.
So many of you have contributed for our quilt drives over the years:
3500 quilts for 9/11
2500 quilts for Japan after the tsunami
1500 quilts for NY after Hurricane Sandy
…and you can see other quilt drives in this photo album.
In the meantime we are making additional donations to Doctors Without Borders, Mission of Love, and other non-profits bringing aid to the border countries. In today’s news it was said that now 2 million refugees have crossed the borders into neighboring countries. This is frankly incomprehensible to us. We can only try to understand what this means.
Thank you for sharing this link with friends who might want to help, or your local guild who are looking for a safe place to donate quilts for refugees in Ukraine.
Tomorrow, March 10, is eQuilter’s 23rd anniversary since we started our business in the basement of our house. It is also my mother’s 85th birthday. We are so blessed to have your support, so we can help others at a time like this. Next month we will reach a total of $1.9 million raised for charity over those 23 years, and we are not done yet.
…sharing your love of fabric,
Luana and Paul
