The marathon one-day blanket creation on the lawn at Dickinson Campus, part of the annual Summer Fair event, brought together a gaggle of knitters and crocheters to the Charles Bruce Foundation artisan booth to create a blanket in support of the Homeless Remembrance Blanket Project display.

Carlisle Summer Fair Craft Show Organizer, Connie Hollenbaugh, was excited to have the knitters and crocheters in attendance. “I made blankets for the art installation last year. Mine was among the 219 blankets placed outside in Carlisle as a beautiful, yet tragic reminder of just how much space 219 people living on the street need – just to sleep! I’ll be making squares at this one-day event on Saturday, and I’ll be making even more blankets for the event at the Capitol this December. Homelessness won’t end itself. We all must join together to help. And we can’t forget our neighbors who need us.”

“Last year’s event shocked all of us – in a great way,” explained event organizer, Pat LaMarche. “Total strangers from as far away as Colorado made blankets for perfect strangers in need. We covered 3200 square feet of walkway and lawn at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Carlisle – and now we’re going national. We hope to have blankets from every state and cover a minimum of 9000 square feet on the west lawn of the US Capitol.”

Max Donnelly, one of the original founders of the #MemorialBlanket project, made coloring pages for young people. The Charles Bruce Foundation which sponsors the event gave these away to kids who accompanied their knitting or crocheting parents. Donnelly invited folks to post their finished coloring pages on social media with the hashtag #MemorialBlanket, explaining, “Getting the word out is as important as making a blanket. The more people who know about it, the more people can join in to help!”

This month, we welcome a new partner, the Summer Program for Youth (SPY), and highlight the creativity they are bringing to the Homeless Remembrance Blanket Project SPY campers are drawing their stories onto squares of fabric that will be assembled into a blanket that will join the display on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol this December 21st.

Volunteer artists and authors, published by the Charles Bruce Foundation, have given their time to the campers every summer for the better part of a decade. This year, in addition to reading to the children, and teaching them about journaling, writing, rhyming, illustrating, and other forms of storytelling – they will involve the kids in one of the largest blanket art installations made to bring attention to homelessness. Squares of 100% cotton fabric donated by a local church leader, Vicar David Hoth, will be hand-drawn by the children, and assembled by area quilters.

“Each of the children enrolled in SPY camp will make a blanket square. They can make drawings of their stories, their family make-up, their favorite pet, hobbies, imaginary creature, whatever. Nearly a hundred children participated in SPY this year and their self-expression will be quilted together to make family blankets for the #memorialblanket project sponsored by the Charles Bruce Foundation (CBF),” explained artist volunteer and CBF board member, Devera Lang.

“Our campers learn so much from working artists and authors. For years, CBF has brought these professionals into the lives of our kids. And now, this December, they’ll get to see their creativity on display at the U.S. Capitol. The kids will be making a difference in the lives of others as their beautiful work warms families in need. I think they’ll learn a lot from this experience,” explained SPY’s Executive Director, Jeanna Som.

You can read more about Summer Program for Youth by clicking the partner link at the bottom of this email.

An undertaking on the magnitude of the Homeless Remembrance Blanket Project display on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol requires a lot of coordination and dedication to the cause. How fortunate we are that the founder of the project, Pat LaMarche, maximized her efforts by using time already allotted on June 18 in support of the Poor People’s Campaign to scope out the area set aside for the December 21 display.

Pat attended the Poor Peoples Campaign march because their values mirror much of what the Homeless Remembrance Blanket Project is about. As organizers of the march published in a statement: “We Assemble and March on June 18, 2022 because any nation that ignores nearly half of its citizens is in a moral, economic and political crisis. There were 140 million people who were poor or one emergency away from economic ruin before the pandemic. Since March 2020, while hundreds of thousands of people have died, millions are on the edge of hunger and eviction, and still without health care or living wages, billionaire wealth has grown by over $2 trillion.”