ADVIL® “RELIEF IN ACTION”: Charity Quilts

I am participating in a sponsored campaign hosted by Advil®, as part of the Advil® Relief in Action campaign. I received compensation for this post. While all opinions stated are my own, I make no claims about Advil® as a product or its effectiveness. Our family is big into volunteering.  Hubby is a volunteer first responder and fireman.  Our son volunteered to fight Idaho wild fires last year.  A few weekends ago our two boys helped a friend shingle his house. It isn’t just the boys that volunteer…we girls do too.  Our daughter hosted a Red Cross blood drive and actively gives blood.  Our daughter Kayla is often volunteering through the school she works at or through her roller derby team.  Kelli volunteers through her work and with me working with our Charity Quilt project.  Our whole family enjoys volunteering and giving back to others.  When Advil® asked bloggers to talk about their volunteer projects, I readily signed up for the chance.  I wanted to team up with Advil® to tell my story because the Advil® Relief in Action campaign honors and supports people who don’t let pain get in the way of helping others. What a worthy cause!! With the help of many of my blog readers, my daughter Kelli and I have been working on charity quilts.  It started a long time ago when we were making more quilts than we knew what to do with.  We just started giving them away for local benefits and fund raisers.  We loved the response we got.  We loved seeing a quilt that we made be auctioned off for $800 to help our local school. Recently a disaster happened in West, Texas.  This disaster was near and dear to our family as it happened in a small town and many volunteer firemen’s families were affected.  We knew we wanted to do something more but just didn’t quite know how.  That’s when we got the idea that if we asked blog readers to help us help the people in West we could start a chain of volunteerism.  We would take quilt tops donated by our blog readers, machine quilt and bind them, then send them on to worthy causes. Originally I volunteered to quilt 10 quilts.  I never thought that readers would send that many.  Imagine my surprise and excitement when 21 quilts came in!! This has been a win-win situation for us all.  Blog readers have been able to clean a few projects out of their closest to make room for more and people in need have been able to be comforted by beautiful quilts.  Here is a photo of a woman from West, Texas with a quilt that was done through our charity quilts project. Here is Hilary who coordinated the quilt dispersal in West, Texas. It gives me great joy to know that many of the quilts in the three stacks to the right were quilts that I worked on. After the West, Texas disaster, we worked on quilts for Moore, Oklahoma.  We have continued to ask blog readers to send quilt tops so that we can have quilts ready for upcoming disasters.  We recently finished this quilt which is going to a benefit to help a little girl who has recently underwent a liver and kidney transplant. I know that I spent long days working on these quilts late into the night.  My feet were sore and tired from working on the quilting machine.  But it was totally worth it.  Giving to others gives me an energy I want to share. For me, quilts are the very symbol of comfort and compassion.  I can’t ever imagine having nothing and needing the help of others.  I think recipients can’t help but feel empowered by each item they acquire that gets them closer to making a home again.  I think quilts bring optimism that there is comfort to be found in the world even though their circumstances are hard. Just recently, 14 more quilts came in.  I am just wowed by the generosity of my blog readers.  I salute all of my blog readers who have worked with us to help others…may we continue to do so for a very long time.  I feel honored and blessed to be surrounded by such a compassionate group of people. If you are looking for ways to help look for and purchase participating bottles of Advil®.   As part of the Advil® Relief in Action program, a portion of the price of participating Advil® bottles will go to Habitat for Humanity® International and Wounded Warrior Project® so their volunteers can get the relief they need, and get back to giving back. Do you know someone or do you yourself actively participate and join in the support of active volunteers. If you do please: –          Follow @ReliefinAction on Twitter and Instagram –          Share how you see Relief in Action by posting a photo with the hashtag #ReliefinAction on Instagram and Twitter. –          Visit http://www.advil.com/reliefinaction to learn more.

You can also find us on Moda Bake Shop for their Every Quilt has a Story feature…and here’s a link to today’s current post here at Jo’s Country Junction.