Quilts for a Cause

Hungry Horse News

A host of Columbia Falls-made quilts and other amenities will help folks in less fortunate  and often war-torn countries in the coming weeks. Our Savior’s Lutheran Church made 260 quilts, 98 baby care kits, 330 personal care kits and 266 school kits for what is part of the annual Lutheran World Relief Drive.

The local women spent a year making the quilts and putting together the supplies, Dawn Baumgartner, local president of the Women of the Evangelical Church of America, said. They also made backpacks for children.

Every Wednesday the women gather at the church to sew quilts from fabric donated by local folks and the Teakettle Quilters Guild.

Thrivent Financial also helps with funding for the personal care kits, which include supplies like toothbrushes and toothpaste and other hygiene items most Americans take for granted.

All told, the total  effort by Lutherans amounted to a whopping 551,700 quilts donated to people across 14 different countries, like Ukraine.

Our Savior’s volunteer Marilyn Shoal did all of the boxing of its items, Baumgartner said. Last week, with help from the Columbia Falls Lions Club and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, a full trailer of boxed supplies and quilts was transported to Kalispell and then will be transported to Missoula for further distribution.

The Wilderness Foundation got involved through happenstance — they were having a meeting at the church and then pitched in for a few minutes to help load up the trailer.

Lion Tom Countryman donated the use of his trailer. The church’s youth group also helped in the greater effort, Baumgartner noted.