Wrapped in love

Cindy Bergen grabbed a pastel colored afghan from a stack on a nearby table and dug through her purse for a crochet hook.

She twirled a loose string from the corner of the blanket around her finger and smiled triumphantly, waving her hook in the air.

“I just couldn’t take it anymore,” Bergen said, mending the blanket. “That string was driving me crazy.”

Bergen is one of about 20 members in the Snohomish County chapter of Project Linus, a national organization that donates blankets to children in traumatic situations. The local group provides hundreds of blankets every year to children in homeless shelters, foster homes and area hospitals.

“Project Linus is there for any child who’s suffered some kind of trauma, it could be an injury or a natural disaster,” chapter president Diane Campbell said.

It may not seem like much to the average person. You can probably count on one hand the number of children who asked Santa for a blanket this year.

“Imagine losing everything you own in a flood or a fire. A blanket isn’t only comforting in that situation, it’s practical,” Campbell said. “Children in homeless shelters have few if any belongings. They need something to keep them warm at night.”

Most of the blankets are divvied up between Stevens Hospital, Providence Medical Center and a handful of local shelters and foster care networks.

“To be able to give a bit of comfort and security to a child is a wonderful feeling,” Bergen said. “It just sort of snowballs so you want to do more and more.”

Members often work with area schools, giving students an opportunity to make blankets or design patches that will eventually be assembled into quilts.

“It’s so cute,” Campbell’s aunt and chapter member Colleen VanBeek said. “The little girls always draw pictures of Hello Kitty on their patches and the little boys will draw little boy pictures.”

Every now and then the group will get a thank you letter — a family will stop by a booth at the mall or county fair and tell the women what a difference a single blanket made in their child’s recovery from an illness or injury.

“We don’t expect anything in return, but it’s wonderful to hear from people and know that we’ve touched their lives,” Campbell said.

Over the years, her Everett home has become a blanket factory and warehouse, with fabric and partially completed quilts and afghans in every corner.

Her sewing room now serves as a storage space for fabric, which is stacked tightly from the floor to the ceiling on bookshelves against every wall.

“It’s pretty impressive,” VanBeek said. “At chapter parties we’ll cram as many as 20 women in the house and all you can hear are women chatting away over the noise from their sewing machines.”

The group functions like a family and treats monthly meetings like reunions to catch up and share stories.

“These women are some of my closest friends,” said Corree Hayes. “We do things together — go to lunch or the movies. Sewing is something we enjoy anyway, so it really doesn’t seem like work.”