About This Project

At the conclusion of the sermon, I asked Charlotte, "If you could do something to give back, what would it be?"  Charlotte and her sister had already used birthday money to purchase coloring books and crayons for children staying at Mercy Hospital, so she came up with helping them.  As we talked about some of the things kids might need, Charlotte remembered when she and her sister were given fleece tie blankets during the loss of their younger sister Lucy Kate in December 2013.

I pointed out a grant by a local bank that was available to students in our district, so she hopped on the computer to complete the grant application.  After she finished, she was excited about the possibility of the project moving forward and did not want to wait for approval.  The next weekend, we worked on a script and shot a video.  We set up a GoFundMe account to help organize the campaign and collect the funds.  We initially set a goal of 15 blankets, but the outpouring of support in the weeks that followed (along with the post-Thanksgiving sales at JoAnn Fabric) allowed us to purchase over 55 blankets!

Charlotte received the grant, and we were able to purchase more blankets leaving us with another problem: needing to have over 60 blankets made by Christmas.  To involve more children in the spirit of giving, we scheduled a blanket making party and invited neighbors.  I also put word out to my colleagues who might want to involve their own children.  In the end, all our fleece was turned into blankets, and we were able to deliver 65 blankets to the children staying in Mercy Hospital.

This project brought about so much community generosity that we decided to make it an annual campaign.  In our second year, we nearly doubled the amount of blankets donated.  Last year, we were able to donate over 500 blankets, and we are looking for ways to involve more people yet!

Thank you to all those who have given time and/or money for a very worthy cause!

Ben (Charlotte's Dad)