Comfort Stitched Into Quilts for Victims

Hundreds of Mormon women have joined together to give local law enforcement a new tool--an assortment of handmade quilts to wrap around victims in times of need.

Assembled during months of quilting meetings by 250 local members of the church’s Relief Society, the quilts will go into the trunks of Ventura Police Department patrol cars--next to the flares, first aid kits, jacks and traffic cones.

The 78 quilts were donated Friday morning at the police station in Ventura.

“They will be used to help children and victims of crime and abuse find comfort during times of distress,” Police Chief Mike Tracy said.

Some of the quilts will go inside storefront police stations. But wherever they are used, they will be appreciated, said Sgt. Skip Young, the department’s storefront supervisor.

The quilts came in a variety of colors and types. Some were hand-stitched, others machine-sewn. One had Pokemon characters on it; another featured Pinocchio. Many had teddy bears.

All looked like they were made with care and would be kept and treasured by those who would someday receive them.

Young said the quilts could be used in a variety of circumstances.

“There are many cases when an officer would take out one of these quilts, like if a child is sitting on a curb shivering after a traffic accident while his mom is being taken away in an ambulance,” he said.

The quilts could also be used to calm lost children or victims of abuse.

“Sometimes words are not enough,” Young said.

Those kind of scenarios are what got Humanitarian Aid coordinator Cheryl Wilde thinking about organizing such an effort.

Members of her church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have made quilts before. Last year, local Mormons assisted in a worldwide church effort to make more than 100,000 quilts to be given away in war-ravaged Kosovo and other places in need of aid. There are 4.4 million Relief Society members worldwide who gather to gain spiritual strength and practical skills.

The Kosovo project got Wilde thinking about local needs for such comfort. Her idea was welcomed when she contacted the Ventura Police Department.

“It’s such a feel-good project--to have people want to go to all the trouble to make a quilt that will comfort someone they don’t even know,” said Elisa Purnell, a department liaison. “I was glad to get involved.”

Wilde plans to continue organizing women in her stake--a geographical region of her church that includes Ventura, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Ojai--to do humanitarian service projects.

“Already, members of the Fire Department have approached us and asked for quilts for them to give to victims,” Wilde said.

Her stake’s future projects include making 500 hygiene kits to be sent worldwide for disaster relief and sewing and assembling 50 eye surgery packs for the Philippines and South America, she said.

Last year, the Ventura Stake, with 3,396 members and 1,258 Relief Society women, sewed dresses for girls in Third World countries and made school kits for Third World countries and receiving blankets for unwed mothers.

The public is invited to the Ventura Stake Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to assist in making “Hats from the Heart” on June 3 at 3 p.m., when Relief Society women will sew hats for cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy treatments, said church member Peggy Clark.

For more information about assisting with Wilde’s efforts in Ventura, call 647-6851.

Today, women from the Thousand Oaks Stake, 1600 Erbes Road, will meet from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. to put together baby layettes, personal hygiene kits and dresses for little girls. These items will all be sent to Third World countries through Deseret Industries, a nonprofit church organization.

The public is invited to help put these items together or to donate fabric for the dresses or combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, travel-size shampoo, travel sewing kits and hand towels for the hygiene kits.