Hands2Help 2020 - Do You Want to Know???

Hi, all!

Well, we've reached the final Sunday of this year's Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge!  I have to say, you all have really risen to the challenge in this strangest of all years - but I'm going to make you wait just a bit for the final numbers.  

First I want to show you some more quilt pictures that came in yesterday from Linda Miller, who served as our Canada point person a couple of years ago.  I've been pleased to see that many of you have supported Victoria Quilts Canada this year, and I know it makes Linda happy to see those quilt tops come in!  This year she shared the sixteen quilts she and her friend Kathy have sent to local charities....

These first three were sent to ChildCan, a group that provides quilts to children with cancer.

The next five were sent to the Mennonite Central Committee comforter program...

These next five were sent to Victoria Quilts Canada by Linda...

...and the last three were provided by her friend Kathy!

And with the addition of these sixteen quilts, I was able to come to a likely final number for this year's Hands2Help Challenge!  Of course, it will probably change over the next few days as a few late entries trickle in, but for right now, I'd like to congratulate all of you who participated... all 117 of you!!!

And all of you wonderful people persevered through what was definitely the weirdest, most bizarre, and definitely challenging year (we certainly won't be forgetting 2020 any time soon, will we?) to donate a grand total of.....

...quilts!  You guys are amazing!!  I never expected that we would have this many quilts in this crazy year, but you have done amazing work.  Just imagine all the lives that will be touched by the work you have done!  

Now I love seeing that many of you have donated to local charities.  That might seem like it's working against the general premise of the Challenge, but it really means that you are seeking out needs in your own community and that is a VERY good thing!  I also love that many of you are still supporting past H2H charities, like Covered in Love and Jack's Basket.  One of the purposes of H2H is to bring smaller charities to the attention of those able to help them with their mission, and when you keep them on your list of donation sites, you are helping them continue their good work!

And here's another amazing thing.  All of the pandemic mess hit right about the time I would normally be asking quilting companies to help by sponsoring the Challenge, and I just didn't feel right asking companies who were having to lay people off or shut their doors, so I delayed sending out the emails, thinking that it would all blow over quickly.  Well, we're now three months into it!  But when I looked in my "goody" cabinet today, and reviewed the list of fellow quilters who said they'd like to help say "thank you" to all of the H2H participants, it appears that each and every one of you will be receiving a bit of happy mail in the upcoming weeks!  In the next couple of days, I'll share more about those goodies - I'm still working on it, so please bear with me.  But it's important to me that each of you know that you are appreciated!

So once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart! You are the reason this Challenge keeps coming back year after year - you keep it alive and spread so much joy through it!!

Hugs!

Sarah

PS - If you have quilts for this year's Hands2Help but didn't have a chance to link them up, please email me at salliesue57 (at) gmail (dot) com and let me know - I'd love to include you and your quilts in the count!