A charity chapter that makes comfort quilts for Canadians with cancer in New Brunswick is ramping up operations following a lull in quilt requests amid the pandemic.
Victoria’s Quilts Canada is a national charity that lovingly crafts cozy quilts for Canadians living with cancer.
“Often we get notes from people that just express the comfort that they have when they pull that quilt out,” said Brenda MacKenzie, a volunteer in the Moncton chapter.
The Moncton chapter has as many as 60 volunteers busy working away at their sewing machines crafting nose-to-toe sized quilts that will eventually be hand delivered to the recipients, said MacKenzie.
“They are going into a situation which is scary and it gives them that comfort, that warmth, that thought that they are not in this alone,” she said.
Debbie Wilson of Dawson Settlement, N.B., is facing her third bout of cancer and recently received a quilt.
“Some days you do feel like you are alone in your battle, ’cause you don’t want to put it all to your family,” Wilson said.
She said getting the quilt helped to ease the burden – sitting with the quilt draped over her lap feels like a “warm hug.”
“Somebody gives you one of these and you can just snuggle into it and all your cares are gone for a few minutes.”
The comfort quilts are handmade by volunteers in chapters across the country with roughly 6,000 quilts being shipped across Canada every year according to Victoria’s Quilts Canada.
MacKenzie said that while there were fewer quilt requests amid the pandemic, the need is ramping back up again.
Volunteers are back at it, spending hours at their sewing machines thinking of those soon to cozy up in their works of art, said MacKenzie.
Those wishing to gift a quilt to a friend or a loved one can apply on the charity’s website and the quilts will be hand delivered right to their door, she said.
“They are touched with the thoughtfulness from that person to think of them and then they open up the quilt and see the beauty and the handwork, that somebody has taken the time to make it for them and deliver it to them.”
The volunteers may never actually meet the person who receives the quilt, but the sense of support is just naturally sewn right in, said Wilson.
“You know that these quilts were made with love,” she said.
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