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Quilts Delivered to Wounded Warriors

The following story and pictures were sent to us by Terese Thomas who is our contact person for donating quilts to the Wounded Warrior Battalion at Camp Pendleton. This is her account of the first delivery of quilts for their new barracks:

April 1, 2010
Quilts!! We had incoming quilts!! You know that the WWB bed capacity just changed from 26 plus ancillary barracks and housing to the brand spanking new 200+ bed facility. Phew what a change in ALL aspects of operation, and more changes are to come as the whole facility gears up for continuing and escalating support operations. Our little piece of the action is the civilian support manifested by these beautiful and warm quilts. They may seem small and quite possibly insignificant to someone not familiar with these WII (wounded, ill and injured) Marines. You never know when a low period is reached and the physical support of a tangible piece of quilt made by “some civilian” will be soothing, warming, comforting and potentially very uplifting.

So….knowing the everything had to be moved from the old to new facility, all the quilts donated in the past six months were stored in my spare bedroom to keep the staff from having to place them on an inventory list then take them out when the new barracks started. I’ll now be taking them to the new place ten at a time. Here are the first:

Wounded Warrior center opening

Then the **real** magic happened. First the arrival of 67 quilts driven down from the Bridgeport group known as SOS: Supporting Our Soldiers. They have been planning, assembling and quilting for an entire year for this support. Janelle M from Bridgeport somehow waved a magic wand and got two local CHP officers to drive them down in convoy from Bridgeport to Camp Pendleton. They stopped at the Oceanside CHP office to regroup, then showed up at the WWB with back seats literally crammed full of quilts. In addition, Heather C from the Valley Quilt Guild heard of the convoy and managed to arrange for 12 of her guild’s quilts to be added to the genormous pile!! Can you imagine 79 quilts in one place?!?!

Wounded Warrior center opening

There’s Janelle helping SSGt Kerr and Cpl Hutchings doing more unloading.

Wounded Warrior center opening

A plethora/abundance/wealth of quilts

Wounded Warrior center opening

Even Jonah joined in the festivities

Wounded Warrior quilts

The sad thing is that due to the lack of access to the barracks for all future days, these quilts that were already inside will not be individually photographed. It was a huge stretch of rules to allow these folks inside the barracks – past the front desk – and to take the time to photograph them all would have not been allowed nor possible. Apologies to all the wonderful quilters for not acknowleding all their creative efforts. I do know that Cooky A made 7 of the Valley Qullt Guild offerings – SEVEN!! One of them from Heather was a huge effort with extremely detailed quilting with the hunting theme. I talked with several of the staff and it was a unanimous decision to give that quilt to one Marine who was severely burned. He has a great heart and when in civilian clothing is always in hunter khaki. Without being able to describe the quilts each on their own, I will say they were vibrant, manly, patriotic, hunter and lots of other themes very appropriate for the Marines!!

Therese Thomas

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