Thank you Legacy Quilters!

The Lake & Sumter County “It’s My Very Own” Chapter began in June 2016. For several previous years while we were “Snowbirds”, we helped make quilts for an IMVO chapter in Greeneville, Tennessee. In 2016 the director of that chapter suggested that we keep the quilts we had made and start our own chapter. At that time we were pretty much in the dark about making the bags and very slow at making the quilts. During the three to four months the snowbirds were here we were making progress but when they all headed back north we were back to a slow crawl. It took us six months to acquire enough quilts to start our first chapter, Lake County. Also at that time we had no funding but as He always does, the Lord provided. Our church decided to donate the childrens offering each week for the IMVO program. Thankfully due to the generosity of our church members we are able to purchase all our needed supplies.

We were blessed when when we received phone calls (out of the blue) from several quilting clubs and with their help we were able to extend our services to the second county. We are currently prepared to provide our Bags of Love to a third county.

In the middle of September 2018, I received a call from Angela Tanner. She said that she had heard of our program and wanted to know if we would present it to the Legacy Quilters group. Of course we were delighted to do so.

The Legacy Quilters Angela Tanner, director of “Legacy Quilters said:

“On July, 2018, our Quilt Group, Legacy Quilters, was looking for a project. I asked my neighbor if she thought one of her friends would know of any. Within a couple of days I received an email from her. She said her group had worked with “It’s My Very Own” and for us to check them out.

I went to their webpage and found that the Florida Directors lived in our Community. I gave Mr. & Mrs. Hix a call and explained who we were and that we were looking for a group project that would help people in our area.

We set up a meeting and they explained that they provide bags and quilts and age appropriate items to children who are removed from their homes by DCF. They informed us that this is completed funded by their church, The Seventh Day Adventist Church of Leesburg, Fl. They provided us with kits, that include all materials needed to sew the bags and quilts. In September, 2018 we received our first kits and through April, 2019 our group has completed 53 kits.”

Angela said they had expected us to provide information about what we wanted and it would be up to them to provide all the fabric, etc. They were delighted to see our ‘kits’ with all the supplies needed for the project. The girls have also been able to help us tweak our kits to make our end product even better. We are blessed and truly grateful for their participation in our efforts.

They have been our consistent partners and we consider them to be an important part of the “IMVO” team. The quality of our bags and quilts are “top notch” due to their efforts. If we run short of a specific age group IE: baby girls or teenage boys, we can always depend on them to supply that specific need. The quilters tell us that it takes 8 hours to complete a set from a ‘kit’. That means they have donated 424 hours over the past 8 months for the benefit of the unfortunate children who receive their quilts. Angela has coordinated this group effort and has invested a great deal of time keeping excellent records for us. She is always kind and helpful, no matter how many times I “bug” her.

We pray for God’s blessing on the children of this community and the quilters who care so much.