KSHB 41 reporter Olivia Acree covers portions of Johnson County, Kansas. Share your story idea with Olivia.
A group of quilters from Overland Park just collected more than 2,500 yards of fabric and hundreds of pounds of other quilting supplies. However, it’s not for their own use.
The Blue Valley Quilters Guild collected supplies to take to a prison in Licking, Mo. A group of inmates there will turn it all into quilts for kids in foster care.
"It's a give, give situation,” said Pat Conover from Blue Valley Quilters Guild. “The children are happy, the men who make them are happy. It's wonderful.”
If this story sounds familiar, it might be because of the 2024 Netflix short, The Quilters. The streaming platform featured this reformative program as a documentary.
After Pat Conover watched it, she wanted to support the men that make these blankets.
Her guild of nearly 300 members collected quilting supply donations to send to the men. What really connected Pat was the reason that many of them chose to do this.
“A lot of the prisoners had come through the foster care system, and they realized what these children are going through and how, if you change a house, you have nothing to take with you, so they feel like this is the child's once they make it, this is that child's possession,” said Conover.
The group collected over 2,500 yards of fabric, boxes of thread, yarn, batting, even pellets for weighted blankets. Despite the rain, they left for their four-hour drive early on Thursday morning, to deliver the supplies in person.
