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Sunday, December 19, 2010

How to receive the QOVF price on Legacy 60" batting.

How to receive the QOVF price on Legacy 60" batting.

In cooperation with the Legacy Batting distributors, we have worked out the following to assure that batting is only going to volunteers ACTIVELY quilting QOVs. (The distributors order the batting with their regular orders to save on shipping costs; they have to store it; they do not make a cent at this price of $60 plus their shipping.)

Be sure that you:
  • Have completed the “Voluteer to Longarm” Form.
  • Quilt an average of at least 2 QOVs per month as shown by the Longarm/topper records of 24 or more per year "Destination Request" forms, or "Report QOVs Locally Awarded" forms. The forms are listed in the left menu on the homepage. www.qovf.org
  • Request a batting authorization letter by emailing batting@QOVF.org with your contact and participation info. Info will be sent to you for the distributors in your area; you choose one, and your authorization is sent to that dealer.

37 QOVs Presented in New Haven

There is a network of QOV makers in the New Haven County area = Cindy Lewis and Nancy Olson in Hamden, Glee Miner in Wallingford, Ruth Knowlton, Carol Brunt, Donna Robinson, Peg Slubowski and I in Branford. As of May, a “baby Gammill” joined my household so I am now doing some of the longarming. Cindy and Holly Potvin are also responsible for much of the rest of the longarming. I love Pam Kuneicki but not having to ship back and forth to Maryland is a huge help.

Cindy’s husband, Dave Lewis (Saint Dave) now works for the West Haven VA; he drives vets back and forth to the Bronx for radiation therapy. When they “graduate” from that treatment they receive a certificate and a Quilt of Valor. My dear Jack is still very active with both Marine Corps League and Military Order of Purple Heart – thus is another source.

Thru Jack, one of the neat things I got us into is through the Hamden Middle School – in May I took part in the 10th annual Veteran’s Awareness Day. Dave Lewis, Nancy Olson and I had a quilt top for signing; a display and then we presented a QOV to James Onofrio, a Hamden veteran in attendance. Dan Levy, the assistant principal at the Middle School asked me to come do a program with the life skill teachers. I never, ever thought I would teach at a teachers professional development day (dragged Nancy Olson and Peg Slubowski along) and the teachers made blocks for two tops. Peg finished one and I finished the other and did the longarming. At a Veteran’s Day program at the Middle School, Nov. 10th, Quilts of Valor (Nancy, Peg and I) presented the Military Order of Purple Heart Commander (Leon Brown) and Adjutant (Ron Vedrani), each Vietnam vets, with the QOVs the teachers made. We also had a QOV top for the students to sign – that quilt will be presented at the next Veteran’s Awareness Day in May.

Sitting on the top shelf in my sewing room are QOVs ready to go to vets returning from Afghanistan. The state with the help of veteran service organizations like Purple Heart (again Jack) have refurbished five houses across the street from the gates of the Rocky Hill Hospital. Connecticut National Guard troops are expected back soon; they may then realized they have no more job, can’t go back to school – whatever; they will be encouraged to stay at the five refurbished houses. Not sure when and if the 12 bedrooms for males and 4 bedrooms for females will be filled. However, the QOVs are ready for those troops. They will be reported in the next letter to you. I will try (hard) not to be so negligent in reporting. I certainly want to be on the “good girl” list so I can get QOV batting when the next group rate is available.

Early this month Cindy and Dave’s son, Chris posted that it was the sixth anniversary of his injury in Fallujah when eight of his buddies died in the suicide incident. He has left the Marine Corps and despite having burns he is now a firefighter in Beaufort, SC. I reflected when he posted, as I do each time I do a program; the different in my life that incident made and just how much of a change you have made in my life.

I am totally grateful to you for your efforts with QOV and giving me such a worthy outlet for my efforts and energies. Jack and I regularly appreciate our ability to work together for veterans; add in Cindy, Dave, Nancy, Peg, Glee, Donna, etc!

Blessings to you and all the QOV family this season filled with things to be thankful for; keep up your hard work!

HUGS!!!!
Jane Dougherty

Jeff Thorne Speech

http://www.youtube.com/user/charitycrafter?feature=mhum#p/u/0/tp7NZVp4Gr8

http://www.youtube.com/user/charitycrafter?feature=mhum#p/u/1/8IYNcIYhXgY

http://www.youtube.com/user/charitycrafter?feature=mhum#p/u/2/djvN7MDmFc4

In Memory of Ruby K. Hargus



Ruby K. Hargus

LANCASTER: Ruby K. Hargus, 99, went home to be with the Lord on December 5, 2010.

Ruby was born August 13, 1911 in Cicerone, West Virginia to the late Rome and Lula Edwards. She spent her younger days on Ambler Ridge where she met the love of her life Jarrel Hargus. They were married July 10, 1938 and later relocated to the Lancaster, Ohio area.

Ruby retired from Shaw's Restaurant after 30+ years of service. She spent most of her later years volunteering at The Salvation Army in the adult day care, wrapping CHRISTmas gifts and, visiting Nursing Homes with the League of Mercy. She enjoyed sewing for friends and family, recently helping with "Quilts of Valor" for our injured soldiers.

**

Grandma Hargus as we all called her, along with her daughter Nancy, working with the Quilting Buddies, have made over 30 Quilt of Valor quilt tops over the past several years.
Attached are pictures of quilts she made.

~Marilyn Finnegan

Navy Vet Presents QOV to Injured Soldier

Follow this link to view the story http://mywabashvalley.com/fulltext?nxd_id=154976

Joyce's Gift

Joyce’s Gift

As another year comes to an end and we look forward to holiday family gatherings, I hope we all stop and remember in our blessings those families who are not together this season because family members are serving their country and are away from their loved ones.

As cold weather sets in and we turn to our “comfort” food recipes – I’m sharing with you a soup recipe shared with me by a neighbor. It’s fabulous for those cold winter days and one of my favorites. Serve with your favorite bread. You can leave out the sausage… but with the sausage “in” – my husband considers it a “manly” meal. Soup and bread are sufficient J

Black Bean & Sausage Soup

2 T. Olive Oil
1 carrot, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. Cumin
4 oz. Chopped green chilies
2 – 15 oz cans black beans, undrained
1 – 14.5 oz can petite zesty jalapeno diced tomatoes
1 ½ c. chicken broth
1 lb Italian Sausage Links (cooked and sliced) (I use sweet Italian sausage)

Heat oil. Sauté carrot, onion and garlic about 6 minutes, until tender.
Add cumin and green chilies. Add beans, tomatoes & broth.
Bring to a boil, turn heat to low, cover and simmer 15 mins.
Remove 3 cups to blender and puree until smooth, Return pureed liquid to pot
Add sausage and simmer 15 min or until the sausage is hot.

Enjoy!
Joyce

New Items at QOV Shop!!

News from the QOV Shop!

At long last we have a few new items in the QOV Shop! A new T-Shirt, sweatshirt and a new apron that are all sporting a fabulous new design that our own QOV graphic designer, Connie, fashioned from an idea I had. Thank you Connie!

Check them out at the QOV Shop – http://www.qovf.org/shop/index.php?cPath=1

Free shipping will continue through the end of December.

We have other items in the works as well, so check back often to see what else we come up with.

1st Graders create QOV

Please follow this link: http://www.nevadadailymail.com/story/1686828.html to read a story about a group of 1st graders who completed a Quilt of Valor to send to a veteran along with a "book of Thanks".

14 QOVs presented in Hemet, CA



The Solera Diamond Valley Quilting Angels in Hemet, California managed to give 14 QOV's to some of the community veterans at the Veteran's Day Celebration in the lodge. We lost one of our Angels to Ovarian Cancer, but managed to gain two more and they earned their wings on that day.

Russ Patterson (shown with Jody) is 80 on Veteran's Day and can still wear his uniform. Alonzo was the oldest veteran present - at age 84 (shown with his wife Jenelle holding the red/white/blue QOV.)

~Suzanne Wade

Region Coordinator - CA, AZ, NV, UT for QOV (Quilts of Valor) Foundation

Starr Mountain QOV Quilters


The week of Veteran's Day was a special week for Starr Mountain QOV
Quilters. After several months of diligent work, we made our first
major presentation for the Veteran's Day service at First Baptist
Church in Englewood, Tennessee. (This is where our group meets.) All
veterans were recognized, but our group had the honor of awarding
quilts to those who had served in war. Seen in the picture are: Sissy
Riggs, Gene Riggs (Vietnam and Desert Storm), Billie Reid, Barbara
Pritchard (QOV Representative), Jerome Reid (Korea), Kenny Dickson
(Korea), Bobbie Dickson, David Bull (Vietnam), Lisa Brown, Caleb
Martin (Iraq and Afghanistan), Lacey Martin, Kim Graham accepting for
her husband, Todd Graham (Iraq), Sarah Patterson (a student who worked
on Graham's quilt) and Teena Chrisman (teacher whose students pieced
Graham's quilt). Not pictured: Ralph Davis (Vietnam) and Doyle Hicks
(WWII).

Later in the week we presented quilts to two ladies: one in the
National Guard, who has served in Iraq and will go to Afghanistan in
January and the second is currently serving as a combat photographer
with the Marines in Afghanistan.

What a way to celebrate our wonderful veterans!
~Gene and Beth

I am writing you to let you know that my non-profit quilt group, Quilts for Broken Heroes, will be presenting 23 Quilts of Valor quilts today. We have been invited to attend a dinner at American Legion Post 175 in Severna Park, MD at a dinner being hosted by Salute the Veterans, Inc. We will be presenting quilts made by my group of about 12 dedicated quilters from Edgewood, MD including one quilter from Florida.

Thanks so much for all your help! We look forward to presenting even more QOV quilts as we have presented more than 500 quilts in the last 4.5 years.

Hope you have a blessed Christmas!

Carol Hansen
President/Founder, Quilts for Broken Heroes (soon to have a name change of Quilts for Heroes)

2 WWII Vets are given QOVs


I have been making QOVs for about 6 years and my sister joined me about 2 years ago. We often send them to the hospitals you designate, but this year we had 2 quilts ready the first part of November, and I checked with a local Nursing Home. They just happened to have 2 WWII veterans living there, so my sister and I asked if it would be ok to award these gentlemen with the quilts on Veterans Day. The men and their families were very pleased with the quilts and so appreciative of the gesture. The gentleman in the wheelchair couldn't stop smiling and his wife said he had not smiled that much in weeks. The other gentleman kept saying how much he loved the quilt. It was very gratifying to give these quilts to someone local this time and I hope to be able to do that again next year. We will still be making QOVs to send to the military hospitals also.

Rhonda Harrell Alma Michigan
Jolene Austin - Holt Michigan

My Three Favorite Moments (QOV Presentation)

I have just returned from a Quilt Presentation for the homecoming of Bravo
Company B 155th Infantry Unit Homecoming celebration in Poplarville, MS along
with 10 other quilters from our group. There were 131 soldiers in the unit.
Not all were present as some are assigned in other locations across the country
and we will ship their quilts to them directly. The moments were almost too
special to even begin to describe.

My favorite 3 moments of the day:

1. After all was done solders were loading the remaining quilts on a huge dolly
to go to my truck for us to ship to those not present later. A couple of
soldiers walked up to me and one said “he didn’t get one because he wasn’t
here”. I sent him to the Sgt. with the list of those who were deployed, the
list of those to receive quilts (there are those new to the unit who did not
receive quilts today). The Sgt. walked him over to me and told me he was to
receive a quilt. So I promptly told him to take off his backpack and put it on
the table as I took a quilt off the top of the stack and removed it from the
pillow case. The Sgt. said “you gotta get the experience, ya gonna get wrapped
in love” with a huge grin on his face.

I told the soldier to turn around and I wrapped the quilt around him and told
him this is your superhero cape because you are a hero to us, thank you for your
service and welcome home. The Sgt. said with no prompting from me “you’re home
now, you’re safe, you are wrapped in this love and you are finally safe.” The
soldier lit up with a light I don’t have the words to explain.
I barely kept my composure.

2. After the soldiers were wrapped in their quilts a soldier wearing his quilt
walked up to me and said “this is my daughter”, a girl about 10 or 11, “and this
is her friend”, another girl about the same age. He pointed to the friend and
said “her dad is in Afghanistan and she wants to know if she can get one of
these quilts to send to her dad for Christmas.” I told her these quilts are for
this unit but if you give me your contact information I will see what I can do.
The truth is I had a quilt at home in a different style that we didn’t need for
the presentation today. It was mostly made by a 9 year old quilter and her Mom,
who were both at the event today. I thought it would just be great to let the 9
year old contact her and give her the quilt to ship to her dad for Christmas.
We’ll make that happen next week. When I told the other quilters in the room
about it they almost declared an emergency meeting on the spot saying “yeah, we
can knock out another quilt in a couple of hours with all of us working on it.”
I reminded them that we still have the 9 year old’s quilt that we were looking
for a special place for. There is no way that girl isn’t going to have a red
white and blue quilt to ship to her dad for Christmas.

3. Just after the soldiers were wrapped in their quilts in all the activity a
woman not quite my Mom’s age walked up to me. She stood there facing me for a
moment and she couldn’t talk. I could see her fighting back the emotions and I
just hugged her and said “I know.” She just held on so tight and she was just
overflowing with emotion. She said “you don’t know what this means.” I told
her that we, all of the quilters, are civilians and we are not military families
and no, we do not know. Her father was a POW in WWII. She is married to
Vietnam Vet and her son served in Iraq. Again, I barely kept my composure.
Oh, and she is a quilter! Clearly a new recruit for our group and very anxious
to participate.

There were many other amazing moments. Oh, they presented us with a certificate
of appreciation, I almost forgot. It was a day of moments I will always
remember. How very blessed and very special we all felt to be able to be a
part of this presentation. The soldiers just loved the quilts. One of the
soldiers told me his wife said “be careful with your quilt, don’t leave it
laying around or just put it down, hold onto it, you got one of the good ones.”
He said to her “look around the room, they are all good quilts, it doesn’t make
any difference which one I get, they are all great.”

We arrived with a big SUV and a 4 door pickup loaded with 131 quilts folded, in
pillow cases and neatly stacked. I went in and asked for the dolly. The First
Sgt. promptly volunteered several guys to get the dolly and come unload for us.
The guys were just too cute when they said “man, this is a lot of pillows, who
are all these pillows for?” We said “it is a surprise” and could barely keep
from bursting out laughing. All the soldiers really did think we had a HUGE
stack of pillows in the corner of the room. They had no idea we were there to
present quilts and those were quilts they just hauled in. Only a few of the
commanders knew what we were up to.

While they all returned from Iraq, very sadly one of the soldiers was lost on
Thanksgiving Day in a car wreck here in the US. The First Sgt. had already told
the family about the presentation of the quilts and is taking a quilt to the
soldier’s family this afternoon.

There were too many “thank you” and too many “I can’t believe ya’ll were here in
our training room doing this the whole time we were gone and we had no idea” and
too many “there is no way we can ever thank you enough, you don’t know what this
means” to even begin to describe. And way too many just plain speechless hugs.
I hope at some point everyone who works on quilts for our military gets the
opportunity to be a part of presenting quilts to soldiers like this.

Keep up the good work and thanks to all of those who supported us to get this
done, we couldn’t have done it without you.
Carol Miller

Updates from Region 9

I was invited to be the Veteran's Day guest speaker at St Anne's Catholic Soldarity Meeting in Bethany Beach, Delaware. The woman's group was honoring two women who had served overseas during the Second World War.

I arrived early at the church with five Quilts of Valor in hand. I was surprised to see the entire church hall set up with festive plates, cups and table decoractions. I was expecting a much smaller group. I met with Lois Rubinsohn, the woman in charge of the Soldarity group and she explained the days events and told me I was welcome to put the quilts across one of the tables for display.

Maurine Scanlon served as a nurse and Elsie Cadden served as a shipping clerk for the Army. Both ladies were treated to a wonderful luncheon and fellowship. The Soldarity chair and co­chair each took turns telling about the lives of Maurine and Elsie. They both have had a full and interesting life.

As the guest speaker, I was asked to talk about the Quilts of Valor and how Catherine was inspired to get the organization off the ground. At the close of my program, questions were permitted. One of the women, we both are members of the same quilt guild and a frequesnt visitor to Serendipity Quilt Shop where I work, asked me to tell the group about the Quilt of Valor Day at Serendipity. I explained that the next QOV Day would be January 8, 2011 and that everything need to make a block was provided. All they needed to do was come and join us for the fun of making a block that would join other blocks to make a Quilt of Valor. The excitement in the room was overwhelming. I hope the shop and my QOV partner Laurel Braunstein are ready for the overflow of people.

At the end of the program there was still one surprise left. I asked Elsie and Maurine to please come forward to receive their own Quilt of Valor. To say they were speechless in an understatment. They both came forward in awe and by the time they had QOV's in hand had tears running down their faces.

Maurine told me as we walked out of the church hall together, “ This is beyond my comprehension. Someone made something so wonderful for me, when all I did was the duty I felt compelled to do. It's amazing, absolutely amazing”. All the way home I couldn't help but think how often Laurel and I hear those same words from many QOV receipients. We find that amazing.

Days after this meeting I was contacted by several women asking to have a Quilt of Valor awarded to a family member or close friend. One woman's husband was slowly dieing of cancer. I brought a QOV to work and when she arrived a few days later I sent the Quilt of Valor home with her. All together seven additional Quilts of Valor were awarded due to the Soldarity meeting on Veteran's Day.

Saturday, December 18, 2010