A group of women at the Manotick United church are donating dozens of handmade fleece blankets to CHEO. About 10 ladies gather weekly to tie the knots and prepare the blankets. The project was birthed by retired teacher Mary Barr, who kept a quilt in the corner of her classroom for students to work and keep busy. “As a teacher of ESL and children, I always was looking for something for them to do where they didn’t have to use the language,” said Barr. Barr was then asked to make blankets for children that were coming from Myanmar (formerly Burma) to experience their first winter in Canada. “Oh, how are those children going to survive? So I said, ‘well, we had to make them fairly quickly because they were coming.’ I had the whole school, every class, make one,” said Barr. Barr said seeing the look on the children’s faces after they received their blanket left a lasting impression. She wanted to continue making blankets and bringing joy to children, so she decided to start Quiltz-4-Kidz at the Manotick United Church. “It has gone on for a long time, and I’ve had a lot of different people working on it. The children in the Sunday school work too sometimes. I’ve been out to Girl Guide units and things like that. [They’ve] asked me to come and show them how to do it,” said Barr. Quiltz-4-Kidz mainly supply’s blankets to children at CHEO twice a year, bringing them a little comfort. Barr says she happy to help them along their journey and bring them comfort. “It’s nice to know that somebody here cares about you. If you’re in hospital, your circumstances are such that maybe there are not many people around them. It’s lovely that we can do this,” said Barr. “It’s something comforting for the kiddos in the youth,” said Julie Bérubé, manager of volunteers at the CHEO Foundation. “They choose the pattern they want. As you can see, there’s a lot of patterns. They get to go home with it so it’s something that’s really cherished, by the kids.” A felt heart is placed in each blanket with a prayer and well wishes. “We all love it and we feel calm doing it and we enjoy it ourselves because we just sit and chat to each other and so it works both ways,” said Barr, “We’re just so satisfied when we do it. It’s just so nice. It’s lovely. It’s lovely to see people working together and they know that it produces something great in the end.” The ladies make about 4 blankets a day, within a 2-hour time span. It’s a group effort to get the job done and fully funded by donations. “It’s a joy to be able to go and choose the fabrics,” said Carol Halstead, volunteer for Quiltz-4-Kidz. “Last step of the process. I unwrap it a little bit and then I iron my labels. Then it goes off on the shelves,” said Isabel MacRae, volunteer for Quiltz-4-Kidz. Since starting Quiltz-4-Kidz in 2008, more than 3,000 blankets have been made. These blankets have been donated to women’s shelters at Christmas time, families who go to food banks, children of families impacted by a fire, groups arriving in Ottawa, children in hospital, veterans, multi-faith housing and more. “To know that somebody cares about their kids. Can’t have anything better than that,” said Barr.
