Hands2Help - Time for Guest Blogger Kat!!

Hi, all!

It's Sunday, and time for us to welcome another guest blogger for the Hands2Help Challenge!  This week, we will be hearing from Kat Drinkwater, who blogs at Kat & Cat Quilts.  Kat runs one of last year's H2H charities, Covered in Love, and she's going to tell us about her experience with Hands2Help.  I can't wait for you to hear from her, so I'll let you get right to her part - but be sure to stick around all the way to the end of the post to see some of the results of this year's Challenge!!

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Hello! My name is Kat and I run Covered in Love which was one of the charities fortunate enough to benefit from the H2H drive last year.  I wanted to let you know what a blessing H2H was for us and encourage you to keep sewing on your quilts for this year!

To give you just a little bit of background, I started CiL 2 years ago to benefit patients in the hospital where I work.  Our mission is to give quilts to patients who are dying or have died in the hospital to warm up the room and so the families can take them home as a keepsake.  To date over 150 quilts have been given out! 

Quilters from all over the world contribute to CiL, mostly through the block drives hosted on my blog.  I am a full-time Nurse Practitioner student, part-time nurse, and do the majority of the quilting for CiL myself, all of which can get exhausting as you can imagine!  I can't tell you what a relief it was during H2H to get so many quilts that only needed a label to be done!

Quilting Assistant #1

Prior to H2H last year we had been getting by with just enough quilts. As soon as I got them done they were up to the hospital and given away. The 50 quilts we got during last year's H2H drive put us ahead for the first time, and we've stayed ahead ever since!

The infusion of new, completed quilts from quilters like yourselves can give a huge morale boost to a little charity like mine, besides of course allowing us to reach more people.  So keep on sewing as H2H wraps up :)  I got some late quilts last year that missed the H2H deadline, but even if it comes in December you can bet we'll still be glad to see it!

PS - I know Sarah has some link ups here during H2H for you to show off your progress.  I wanted to let you know that I also have a linky every Wednesday for charity related sewing, if you want to link up!

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It makes my heart sing to hear that H2H had a lasting effect on Kat's ministry - I know from personal experience what a relief it is to have quilts ready to go when there is a need, instead of having to finish one in a hurry.  See what you have done?  You guys rock!  

And today I heard from Amanda Kelly, who runs Stash Builder Box, which is the conduit for our donations to Camp Hobe this year.  She sent me this picture.....

...which was what she picked up from her post office box this morning.  She said it was mostly H2H donations...

And these are just some of the quilts they received today!  She says they have a stack of ten already.   In her words, "Camp Hobe is going to have some happy campers come June!"  

Look what you have done!  I am so proud of all of you!!!  You are making a huge difference in the lives of so many - keep up the good work!!

Hugs!

Sarah