Donate Your Old Housewares, Books & Clothing/Textiles Aug. 11-Oct. 4

By Judith Dorato O’Gara

Batting. If you don’t sew, you might not think much about it, but it’s essential to making a quilt cozy and warm, and it can be costly for the volunteers who comprise Yankee Quilters, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization of quilters who make quilts to comfort cancer patients, veterans and others who need them. Starting August 11th through October 4th, 2025, the guild is asking you to clean out your closets and cupboards and donate your gently used textiles, household goods and books, so they can fundraise for batting, backing fabric, and guest lecturers. Specifically, the group is collecting:

• Clothes (in bags): men’s, women’s, & children’s clothes, coats, shoes, scarves, handbags, wallets, fashion accessories, belts, backpacks, etc.

• Household Textiles (in bags): bedding, comforters, blankets, sheets, towels, linen, tablecloths, curtains, pillows, etc.

• Small Household Goods (in small tightly packed boxes): kitchen items (such as pots/pans, dishes, silverware, glasses, serving pieces and hand-held appliances), home decorative items, knick-knacks, toys, games, and small electronics

• Books & Media (in separate boxes): paperback, hard cover - all genres - *no encyclopedias or textbooks

Yankee Quilters always welcomes new members, including beginners. The group meets on the second Tuesday of the month at Emma’s Quilt Cupboard at 7 p.m. from September through June. 

A quilting class at Emma’s is where Paula Colleton, who has lived in Bellingham most of her life, first heard about the group in 2008. She’s been quilting since 1976, as a young Mom who took an evening class with Gladys Glockner at Bellingham High School. “ I was hooked,” says Colleton, who also belongs to Thimble Pleasures Quilt Guild, “I couldn’t get into it fast enough. It was love at first stitch.” Glad she joined the “nice group of people” at Yankee Quilters, Colleton says, “I had no idea that the guilds did anything besides sew. I thought it was strictly a social thing, and it is, but each guild does so much more than get together and sew. They all have their own specific volunteerism.”

Fellow member Cindy Lynch explains Yankee Quilters’ Comfort Quilts was started by Joan Hallett, of Franklin, around 2000. These quilts are currently provided to cancer patients at Dana Farber in Milford. Other quilts have gone to First Concern PRC in Marlborough, Quilts of Valor, and Wrap the World with Quilts, a group that began at the start of the Ukraine war and provided quilts to Ukrainian refugees in Poland.  

“To us, it’s just a show of caring ,but for them, they’re very grateful,” adds Colleton.

“I personally love the group,” says Lynch, Yankee Quilters’ treasurer, whose mother, a Holliston resident, is a long-term member. Lynch travels a good distance from Monson to remain a part of the guild. “In a lot of ways they work together, they love to share. If one person is struggling with how to do something, there’s always somebody else that has done it prior and will share that information. In some ways, it’s a very diverse group in the sense that there are people who like doing things very structured, using patterns, and there are other people that take scraps and make it into some of the most gorgeous work out there,” Lynch says.

Sandie Husby, of Franklin, is one of those who likes to quilt from scraps. She has been quilting since 1986. A member of Yankee Quilters and purveyor of her own sewn work (The Lone Quilter), the Idaho native says, “I really enjoy the group. I get a kick out of them. Some of those women have known each other for 50 years, and they have stories.” She encourages beginners to experience how welcoming the group is. “Whatever your skill level is, whatever you can do, you come in ,and you can help. If you want to come and hear the speaker, great! If you want to come in and do the comfort quilts and iron, great!”

In addition to the second Tuesday of the month, some members also meet at Emma’s on Mondays, from 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. to work on comfort quilts.

“That, right now, is our best option for people who are learning to sew,  to help them,” says Cindy. On Tuesday afternoons, from 1:30-4 p.m., the group holds an open sewing circle at Christ the King Lutheran church in Holliston.

Members, says Cindy, whose husband finishes many of the comfort quilts with a long arm machine, “are there to have fun, to enjoy what they’re doing, to pass it on to new people, to share their experiences. We are a low budget guild, so we look to each other’s knowledge for each of us to build our craft.”

The Yankee Quilters do some other fundraising,  putting some of their creations in a consignment shop, Mermaid and the Mariner in Monson, as well as holding a “Staycation” four times a year at Christ the King in Holliston, a weekend that includes dinner Friday night, lunch and dinner Saturday, and bagels on Sunday. The cost is $100 for members and $125 for no-members, with the next scheduled for October 24-27, 2025.

Right now, if you would like to support the Yankee Quilters with donations of household items between August 11th and October 4th, contact Cindy at (508) 560-5846 or email [email protected] to arrange for pickup, or simply drop items off at the Community Collection Day, September 6, 2025, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Prime Storage, 302 Hartford Ave., Bellingham.