It started three years ago at King of Kings Lutheran Church as a pre-confirmation (Club 56) small group service project when 12-6th graders purchased fleece and tied blankets for children housed at a Harriet Tubman Women’s Shelter. Over the next two years, confirmation students tied blankets and donated them to children recovering at Gillette Children’s Hospital and to those receiving meals through Loaves and Fishes at St. Matthew’s Church in West St. Paul.
In 2008, the simple idea of cutting and tying fleece into warm blankets spread through the church. With a goal of 200 blankets, confirmation students, several senior high small groups, adult Bible studies, individual congregation members, and community members donated fleece or made monetary donations to purchase fleece, for the blanket-making project.
Many church members and families made and donated finished blankets, while several adult church members volunteered their time (and their scissors) to cut the fabric to prepare it for tying by confirmation students.
Nearly 100 confirmation students and adults attended a “Blanket-Tying” party on Dec. 10. They tied the cut fleece pieces into blankets, rolled their finished products, tied them with holiday ribbon and finally attached a card and a candy cane. Over 160 blankets were made.
Many of the finished blankets made by King of Kings volunteers were again given to Loaves and Fishes. The remaining blankets were donated to other social service agencies serving the homeless.
We thank many people far and wide for their generosity and time to make the life of another warm with God’s love!