At QALC we are actively involved in making school and personal care kits as well as the QALCW sewing quilts and blankets for the baby layettes. Every spring and fall the men’s group helps load the trucks for shipping at a regional Ingathering. For more information contact Rich or Candy Mathes.
Baby Care Kits—
Lightly used, Size 12-month jackets;
Socks;
Light weight T-shirts/undershirts.
Questions? Contact Jennifer Jones
For Quilts—
Dark-colored cotton sheets, print or solids; Quilter’s cotton, any length.
Fabric Care Kits—
Thread—neutral colors. Each kit requires 2 spools of thread of 250-300 yards each.
We were donated fabric (45”wide x 3 yards).
Backpacks—
spool of cotton, polyester or nylon clothesline (about 1/4” in diameter. Each pack uses 4 yards of cord (2 lengths of 2 yards each).
Questions? Contact Candy Mathes
Our QALC LWR Kit-Making effort depends upon help from many of you. Please read below before you purchase any supplies.
We buy most Personal Care Kit Supplies online, in bulk. The combs, fingernail clippers and toothbrushes are uniform, toothbrushes individually wrapped. If you want to donate cash to pay for these, please write a check to QALCW with “LWR Kit Supplies” on the memo line. We can use bath towels or soap if you want to buy them; here are the criteria:
Bath towels need to be minimum of 20″x 40″ (hotel size) up to 27″x 52,” and dark colored. They do not need to be thick and plush, as they need to air-dry in hot, humid climates. Target now has their Room Essential Bath Towels (27″x 52″) on sale at $2.40. Please only buy dark-grey or some other dark color. Light colors are hard to clean in a refugee camp without washing machines. The $2.40 price is now cheaper than 2018, when Target sold hotel size towels (20″x 40″) for $2.50.
Soap: Four-ounce bars of Ivory soap are best—each kit must include 8-10 oz, so we send two 4 oz. bars.
We prefer Ivory. Yes prices have increased a lot. I am paying 75 cents per 4 oz Ivory bar at Fred Meyers.
The School Kit Supplies that we need may not be available online. We depend upon some of you who visit Target, Kroeger, Staples, or Walmart stores during the July–August “back to school” specials. Office Depot also has some items. I prefer not to use the Office Depot brand of pencils. If you can find items online, that is fine—just verify that they meet the criteria below.
We do know that this fall we will need the following:
We also donate some of the same supplies—or similar items—to Twegashe school (CORE Tanzania). The Banobis prefer the two-hole, storage box pencil sharpeners. They prefer all-metal rulers—metal rulers do not break. Unfortunately the metal rulers cost $2, and are not always available on sale; although Fred Meyers had them for $1 July 18th. We will need 50 metal rulers for Twegashe this year if you want a particular shopping target. We have not often shipped metal rulers through LWR because we never have enough.
If you ever have questions while in a store shopping, text me at 206-384-1183 (or call) or email me at lwrmathes@aol.com. Sometimes stores have variations that I have not seen myself. Thank you all for your help and support in this continuing effort to help those students in need overseas (LWR usually only send materials overseas). If you have any suggestions for good sources, please let me know.
—Rich Mathes
Thanks to all who helped in any way: buying or finding materials, putting kits together, making quilts, packing the boxes, loading delivery vehicles, giving fabric away, loading containers for Baltimore, donating funds for shipping. Loading went great; we had a great team of volunteers. Weather Friday was rainy, Saturday fine.
Statistics: Quilts School Personal Fabric Baby Weight
Queen Anne LC: 57 80 156 9 17 897 lbs
All 89 churches: 5,655 618 2,479 148 730 28,559 lbs
Most school kits are produced in fall because school supplies are only on sale from July–September. A few churches (like QALC) stockpile enough supplies in fall for school kits in the spring. Very special thanks to Phoebe P., who personally raised funds, sewed the school backpacks, and assembled 30 of our 80 School Kits.
The 89 contributing churches are west of the Cascades, from Rochester and Yelm up to Canadian border, Alaskan churches in the Panhandle, one Canadian church, and one in Leavenworth. For the first time, a Chilliwack, BC church arranged with the Whatcom County churches to send quilts to the Seattle Ingathering. Apparently, in pre-Covid times they somehow shipped to the South St. Paul, MN warehouse. Spokane has an Ingathering for Eastern Washington, and parts of Idaho; The Portland Ingathering includes Oregon, SW Washington, SW Idaho churches, and some northern California churches.
Our Fall Seattle Ingathering will be Nov 3rd & 4th.
In case you did not see a copy, the quarterly publication from LWR (Faith in Action) covered the Seattle Fall Ingathering (last November) and included photos and articles highlighting some of our dedicated QALC members. There are extra copies in the narthex if you want to read more about QALC members who regularly participate in the Seattle Ingatherings. The world map showing where LWR quilts and kits were shipped in 2022 is also available for your reading, or to take and give to someone who might want to more about LWR’s quilt and kit distribution ministry. —Rich Mathes
Donations are always needed for our Baby Layettes.
Watch for 12- to18-months sized jackets for the Baby Layettes. That was the item most needed when items were last counted! Other items include T-shirts, knit pants, (Most useful sizes are 9-18 months), layette gowns, socks, diapers/pins, and blankets. Questions? Ask Jennifer Jones.
LWR School Supplies—Catch the Sales
Please go shopping during summer “back to school sales,” to help us create School Kits for Lutheran World Relief and for CORE Tanzania’s school.
Our goal is 75 School Kits. Each kit needs:
The Sewing and Service group has started to meet again. Batting has been cut. Now we need people to help layer and tie quilts! We are now resuming our weekly Wednesday sessions at the church —please come back if you are willing and able; it will be so good to see you! We meet each Wednesday from 10 AM until 1 PM.
The PDQ Quilters also meet on the second Monday of each month in the evening at 5:30 PM. It is great to quilt with Pastor Kristy Daniels again, and members of the Church of Steadfast Love. The tradition in this group has been to share a meal; at this time we are asking everyone to bring their own supper and we will eat together that way.
We need dark-colored cotton sheets for quilt backs (lots of tops have been made this past year) and size LARGE men’s cotton t-shirts for making diapers! Baby kits include Sweaters—12 – 24 months, Baby T – Shirts and Pants (no feet in pants). And we ALWAYS need bars of Ivory soap for the kits.
Find more opportunities to serve others:
Lutheran World Relief (LWR) is an international nonprofit organization specializing in International Development and Disaster Relief. It was headquartered in New York, but has been based in Baltimore, Maryland since 1995. LWR promotes sustainable development by helping communities increase the quality of life, engage in Fair Trade, and be better equipped to handle emergencies.
Part of LWR’s work includes responding to disasters. In the wake of the 2004 Southeast Asia Tsunami, Newsweek ranked LWR as one of the best international relief agencies, giving LWR an “A+” rating. LWR continues to receive high rankings from organizations such as the American Institute of Philanthropy, who gave LWR an A rating in 2007 through 2010, and Charity Navigator, who rated LWR the maximum four stars.
Our LWR Quilts found themselves in Beirut at the time of the explosion in 2020. Go here for more about that event.
Baby care kits and personal care kits, boxed and ready.
A beautiful fan quilt:
School kits:
Boxing everything up after worship: