Volunteers create hundreds of blankets for Montreal women in need

Volunteers gathered at Montreal's Place Ville-Marie to create handmade blankets to support women in need.

Hundreds came together at Place Ville-Marie in Montreal on Saturday to admire 344 knitted and crocheted blankets made by other volunteers from across the province to help women in need

Along the floor, it was a cushy, immense kaleidoscope of colour - all created by hand.

The project is called “Crafted for Courage” and was organized by the Nota Bene Foundation.

The community-driven art initiative is by women - for women.

“We have hundreds of volunteers,” said founder Nori Bortoluzzi. “We asked them to knit or crochet a 50 by 50 centimetre square, and then we were going to take the squares and assemble them into blankets.”

Kim Bassenden is one of those who made a blanket along with her friends who wanted to help.

“We get together twice a month and we take on projects for the community and we help out wherever there’s need,” said Bassenden. “We always try and find projects that we want to get ourselves involved in.”

Alongside her friend Joanne Martindale, they had fun spotting their handiwork on Saturday.

“We ended up making 36 squares and they all have a little butterfly on them. I made the little butterflies for all of them,” said Martindale.

Visitors were invited to make a $75 donation in exchange for a blanket, and all proceeds go to women’s shelters in the greater Montreal area, such as Chez Doris for women experiencing homelessness.

“It’s really important,” said executive director Diane Pilote. “The increasing number of women that we are seeing every month is around 50 each month, so we need funds. We need money. We need people that want to help us to develop our program, our services.”

“Violence against women is very not spoken about, but it does exist,” said Bortoluzzi. “And they, of course, need the help. We’re hoping that our funds will go specifically to programs where survivors will have will be able to benefit from programs to help them integrate back into a regular life.”