Project Linus looking for volunteers Saturday

Published 10:45 pm Thursday, December 9, 2010

If they reach their goal later this month, Project Linus volunteers will complete 100 blankets in five hours to help comfort children in pain or in need.

The Snohomish County chapter of Project Linus is organizing its third and final Make a Blanket Day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Super Supplements, 19925 44th Ave. W, Lynnwood.

The volunteers are asking for people to help cut fabric, sew or inspect blankets for pins or stains. Experience is not necessary and children are welcome to help, so long as their parents supervise.

The blankets are distributed to children in crisis or who have experienced a traumatic event. Children in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment or who have been burned and children separated from their parents or in foster care are prime candidates. Blankets are made for all ages up to 18 years.

Diane Campbell, Snohomish County Project Linus coordinator, said most of the blankets go to children within the county. But within the last few years, blankets were sent to flood victims on the Olympic Peninsula and Hurricane Katrina survivors.

Campbell, who has been involved with Project Linus for approximately 10 years, said giving blankets to children that have gone through traumatic experiences helps ease their pain.

“When you hand a child a blanket, it’s their blanket,” she said. “It’s something that’s theirs.”

That is something particularly meaningful to children in foster care, she said. But it’s true for other children in need, as well.

“If a child is in the hospital surrounded by total strangers they have something they can hold onto to keep them emotionally warm,” she said.

Project Linus began in 1995 after a woman made a blanket for a child undergoing chemotherapy. Since then, Seattle- and Everett-area volunteers have made and delivered more than 15,000 blankets.

Besides helping children, the project also aims to “get volunteers feeling good about giving to a child,” Campbell said.

Quilts, afghans and fleece blankets are distributed to children through the Red Cross, Operation Home Front and the Seattle Children’s, Harborview, Swedish, Providence and University of Washington hospitals.

“The kids are so excited by the colors,” Campbell said of the blankets. “It makes them feel good.”

Campbell said Project Linus made more than 1,300 blankets last year. They passed that number earlier this year.

The Snohomish County chapter of Project Linus hosts three Make a Blanket Day work parties per year in addition to smaller, monthly work parties. Parties were held earlier this year in Mukilteo and Everett. Campbell said approximately 50 volunteers regularly attend monthly work parties.

“Every little bit helps,” she said.