Blanketeers Soothe Those in Need

This is a thank-you card of sorts to a crafty crew of women – and one man, I am told – who have always been quick to provide comfort to those whose tribulations are told in this column.

Many of you are marvelous that way, asking how you can help, whom you can write a check to, or where you can send a card, a care package, a prayer.

But I can’t think of a single time after those columns were published that I didn’t receive a call from Gail Doherty asking whether I thought a nice, snuggly, handmade blanket might be just the thing to lessen the sting of a broken heart, a broken home, a lonely soul, a languishing body.

Doherty is the founder of the Bernalillo County chapter of Project Linus, whose volunteers – blanketeers, they call themselves – put the security in security blanket.

A tiny baby struggling with a brain tumor. A young boy hospitalized with a mysterious illness. A father with multiple sclerosis facing eviction. A family that lost everything in a fire. Each was featured in past columns, and each brought Doherty running, armed with blankets.

“It’s a little thing,” Doherty often said. “But it might help.”

She knew that those blankets were more than thread or yarn or patches of fabric and fleece. They were made with love and care, and those gifts permeated every fiber.

“It’s something to hold onto, to wrap yourself in when you are in crisis,” said Ami Peterson, Bernalillo County chapter coordinator. “We get letters from people saying their child has had one of our blankets since he or she was a premie or from folks who have held onto those blankets as if they were security blankets. That’s what the blankets are for: to give a little comfort.”

Last year, the chapter gave away 3,695 comforting blankets, Peterson said. That’s 41,755 total blankets made and donated and tagged with a Project Linus label since the chapter was formed in 1999.

	For more information Contact the Project Linus chapter of Bernalillo County at www.projectlinusabq.org.

Every Monday morning, blanketeers get together at the Bear Canyon Senior Center in Northeast Albuquerque to trade yarns – both the woolen and chitchat kind – and make more blankets, quilted, crocheted, cut or knitted.

“We try to keep a continuous inventory of about 300 blankets,” Peterson said.

The group regularly donates blankets to about 30 entities, including neonatal intensive care and pediatric units at city hospitals, Albuquerque police substations, homeless shelters, the Red Cross, Ronald McDonald House, Catholic Charities, Cuidando Los Niños, the Children’s Grief Center, the Imus Ranch, New Futures School and the Women’s Housing Coalition.

“We have a group of ladies who check in with these groups to see where the needs are,” Peterson said. “Those groups will also call us when they need more blankets. It’s a relationship that develops.”

Project Linus, named for the blanket-carrying character from the “Peanuts” comic strip, began in 1995 in Denver after founder Karen Loucks read an article about a young cancer patient who clutched a blanket as security during chemotherapy. Loucks figured she could make blankets for young patients at the Rocky Mountain Children’s Cancer Center, and thus Project Linus began.

Today, there are Project Linus chapters in all 50 states. New Mexico has three, covering Bernalillo, Sandoval and Doña Ana counties.

On April 14, the Bernalillo County blanketeers attended a social in Albuquerque. It was an annual event to thank them for volunteering their time and their skills to Project Linus.

So let me add my thanks as well. You folks make the world a warmer place.

And more thanks: I received so many messages of care and support after the death of my father on April 11. Many of those messages came from those of you who have also suffered tremendous losses – I know because I wrote about them in this column. Your kindness meant a lot to me. Thank you.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to ABQjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal