Quilters Took Action!
CZU Lightning Fire Response
The CZU Lightning Fire Quilts Project has ended.
Our CZU Quilt project was a huge success! We started the fire quilt drive at the end of September 2020 and have been donated/collected 1863 quilts from all over the United States. We hosted seven Give Away Events at the Live Oak Grange. We would like to thank the Live Oak Grange Women Association (GWA) for the use of their facility at no charge. Our project expenses included storage space rental, purchase of batting, and postage expenses.
We received 483 quilts from out of state and 1329 quilts from within California. We were able to distribute 936 quilts to CZU fire survivors and donated 900 quilts to other community/outreach programs. We still have 27 quilts in our inventory. If we do not receive more CZU Fire survivor requests for quilts by the end of November, we will donate these quilts to other California fire survivors with the help of We Care and Happiness is a Warm Quilt (both organization who have been very helpful with our quilt drive). Thank you to everyone who donated quilts, time, and resources to this project!
Charts showing Donations and Distribution of Quilts can be downloaded from the following link:
A story about the CZU Lightning Fire quilt donation that aired on KSQD radio – 90.7 on August 17th was produced by Kyle Baker. Kyle, a UCSC student, came to a quilt give-away and interviewed people coordinating the events (Helen, Barbara, and Lori), people who were receiving quilts, and people volunteering.
Kyle produced the story about the quilt give-away that was aired on NPR on the Kitchen Sisters radio program. Kyle had no history of quilts, how they were made, time involved, materials, and so forth. He became quite impressed with our effort to track down and distribute quilts to those affected by the CZU Lightning Fires and was impressed by the people who showed up to collect quilts. He has succeeded in getting this story out.
Replay the KSQD program by clicking on the following link:
KSQD Fire Quilt Broadcast-Kyle Baker with the Kitchen Sisters-August 2021
Kyle Baker is a Santa Cruz based documentary filmmaker with his MFA in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz.
One of our survivors wrote to us after receiving his quilts:
I was able to go select 2 beautiful handmade quilts at the Live Oak Grange a few weeks ago. I don’t know why it was this event that touched me so deeply. There have been so many instances of generosity and support that I have experienced since losing my house in the August wildfires. I think it must have been walking into that room full of quilts, all made with loving care by people I do not even know. I have made many quilts in my life, my gramma made quilts. I know what a labor of love making a quilt is. The part that amazed me was that those works of art were freely given to a complete stranger. I really was overcome by the whole event and left with tears in my eyes.
I am so very grateful to have been a recipient of 2 amazing quilts. And I thank you for making this possible and hope you will pass on my thanks to all of the wonderful craftspeople involved in bringing these joyful creations to my family. --
T.S.
