Time to spare? These volunteers suggest creating a bit of comfort for a child in need

Whether you’re at home alone craving something interesting to do or you have a hoard of children complaining of boredom, Project Linus has a suggestion. The Belton-based national non-profit is a network of volunteers who make blankets to give to children in need of comfort.

Last year in the Kansas City area, volunteers made and distributed 14,900 blankets. Since it began in 1995, the group has made and distributed 7,890,443 blankets nationwide.

Anyone can make blankets out of yarn, fleece or cloth and give them to the group to distribute to children who need them.

“We have seen just the most awesome things. I’ve seen beautiful quilts that are done with embroidery,” said Patty Gregory, national president of Project Linus.

“Some of the most precious ones to me are where children have used fabric markers and colored on fabric squares, and adults sew those into quilts. That’s little kids giving back to kids.”

Drop-off locations throughout the metro are scattered at various craft and sewing stores, including Missouri Sewing Machine and Joann fabric and craft stores, but Gregory is asking blanket-makers to hold onto their creations for the moment, due to COVID-19.

Project Linus’ national headquarters are wherever the person in charge lives, so after starting in Denver in 1995 and later moving to Bloomington, they landed in Belton when Gregory took charge in 2016.

The Linus in Project Linus is indeed the beloved Peanuts character who takes great comfort in his blanket. Charles Schulz knew about the group, which has about 300 chapters nationwide, before his death and left a provision for them that allows the group limited use of Linus’ image for free.

All of the chapter coordinators and blanket-makers are volunteers. There’s a very minimal overhead; most donations go to purchasing supplies for making blankets. The group also takes donations of supplies, but the fabric and yarn can’t have a musty smell, have had animals on it or have been stored in a basement.

Every chapter’s guidelines for blanket donations are a little bit different, but blanket sizes generally range from 36-square inches to 45-by-60 inches.

Lynn Winegar of Olathe has been quilting for Project Linus for about 15 years. She’d sewn clothes for her kids for years but hadn’t previously done any quilting.

“I try to focus on boy-themed quilts, because a lot of people make cute pink teddy bear quilts and it seems the boys get left out,” she said.

Although Project Linus provides patterns, blanket-makers just have to follow size and material guidelines and are not limited to the provided designs.

“I’m an engineer by education and background. It’s very structured, so it’s very freeing to go in and let the creative process take over,” said Lori Hill, a volunteer who makes quilted blankets.

Within the Kansas City area, Project Linus supplies blankets to every hospital except Research Medical Center, which has its own auxiliary group that makes blankets. Each hospital has its own preferences.

Typically, volunteers pick up the blankets from the drop-off locations, sew on labels and deliver them to hospitals and other agencies. Hill makes a regular 60- to 100-mile loop from her home in Parkville to pick up, label and then drop off blankets.

“There’s one hospital her in the metro that doesn’t want any crocheted, because they only do children’s outpatient surgeries, and the nurses complained that the IVs were getting stuck in the blankets. So they only get flannel or fleece or quilt,” Gregory said. “Whatever the facility wants is what we make.”

In addition to the hospitals, Project Linus also gives blankets to other groups who deal with children in need of comfort: shelters, the Division of Family Services in Missouri, the Department of Human Services in Kansas and the Kansas City Police Department.

Volunteers do not interact directly with the children.

“People say, ‘But don’t you want to give it to them directly?’ No, it’s just about — I know it’ll comfort them,” said Lea Robrahn, a volunteer from Overland Park. “I had a friend who all three of her children had medical challenges, and all three had Project Linus blankets, and none of them wanted to change them out, because that was the one that comforted them when they were in hospital or sick. And I’m very proud of that.”

Gregory gets emails from all over reacting to the blankets, saying, “This made my child smile.”

“Here was this brightly colored blanket in an otherwise drab setting, and it just brightened our day,” she said. “We’ve had people write and say, ‘My child was crying, and I couldn’t comfort them, and they handed the blanket, and they hugged it up and then they stopped crying.’”

Usually, Project Linus holds group blanket-making days in April and October. The April meet-up has been postponed due to COVID-19. Several groups meet regularly to work on blankets together.

Robrahn, who cuts out fabric to make kits for other quilters, meets with a group at Harper’s Fabric & Quilt Company in Overland Park every month, when there isn’t a quarantine.

“Quilting is often a very solitary entertainment, so getting these groups of women together — and men — is really nice,” she said.

For blanket guidelines, patterns and other information, visit projectlinuskc.org.