Camp
Holiday Trails
in Charlottesville, Virginia |
On July 4th, 2006,
quilts of many colors and designs descended upon Camp
Holiday Trails in Charlottesville, Virginia, to the
delight of the 100 campers with special medical needs
including dialysis and recent transplant recipients.
Despite the hard work of the dozens of volunteers
making the quilts, near the end, it was the devotion
of the United States Postal Service employees who came
to the rescue to ensure each medically needy child
left camp with a special quilt, woven from love. |
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Project
KIDney Quilts is the brainchild of the American Academy of
Nephrology Physician Assistants (AANPA) whose goal is to send
a quilt home with each child as a lasting reminder of their
time at Camp Holiday Trails. But as the deadline loomed for
this year’s camp, organizers had made less than half of the
100 quilts needed. That’s where the USPS comes into the
picture.
Connie
Totten-Oldhan, a Postal Service employee and Director of the
Washington, DC chapter of Project Linus, organized Project
Linus quilters, PAs nationwide, patients and staff of
Fresenius clinics in Maryland, and the National Kidney
Foundation to make 100 quilts by July 1. With only 45
completed quilts and only weeks remaining, it appeared as
though the dream would not be realized. In the week before
this year’s Camp Holiday Trails was to start, a scene,
reminiscent of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”
unfolded.
Unexpectedly,
at a Postal employee’s conference that Connie attended, one
of the speakers stated that they heard of Connie’s effort to
collect quilts for children. Suddenly, 52 postal employees
from every state in the union and two territories walked up to
the podium with quilts in their arms. There were flannel
quilts from North Dakota, a lighthouse quilt from Maine,
woodsy prints with Montana’s state bird, a quilted postage
stamp from Arizona, pieced and quilted squares, and one with
embroidered words: made for you with love by someone in
Alabama. “I was overwhelmed”, said Totten-Oldhan. “I
burst into tears and told them they had made a group of
special kids at a kidney camp very happy this night.” |
| So, thanks to a very
special group of postal workers, Project Linus, the
AANPA, the AAPA, Fresenius and the NKF/NCA, the very
first KIDney Quilts project was an overwhelming
success! We hope to expand next year and are looking
for quilters now. If you are interested in helping,
please contact us. |
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