May 2024 News

May Day has ancient origins in Europe as a festival celebrating the beginning of summer. Coincidentally, we got our first blanket from Europe for this year's event in December. This lovely blanket came from a Bavarian community in Southern Germany! What a lovely way to highlight that community is a global phenomenon. 

In 1886, after labor unions in the United States initiated a strike for an eight hour workday, May 1st was dedicated to the recognition of workers worldwide. A living wage and overtime pay are great ways to stave off homelessness.

For those of you from communities that celebrate May Day, you may remember putting treats in baskets and setting them on the doorsteps of your neighborhood. 

The Charles Bruce Foundation, #memorialblanket volunteers and all the folks who have benefited from a blanket over the years know the importance of community. We hope you celebrate this day dedicated to our neighbors, coworkers, friends and perfect strangers with lots of smiles.

Have we told you lately how amazing you are? We haven't been at this #memorialblanket thing long, but we're all kind of conditioned to expect to be making blankets for December. Then we get volunteers to work all day in the cold and others to donate money to make it happen. 

The recent Supreme Court case Johnson v Grants Pass flipped all that on its head. When the Charles Bruce Foundation board of directors committed to having a blanket display at the SCOTUS, we had only a few weeks to get the word out and make things happen. 

But, like you have every year, you were there for us. The Lovely Lutherans (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America - Susquehanna Synod) led the way in fundraising for a bus. And boom! You pitched in and we rented a bus to transport volunteer supporters to Washington, DC! We needed blankets. Boom! Create-a-Palooza stepped forward with a collection site, and we got a hundred blankets in less than a month. The bus may have been smaller, and the blankets taken with us fewer, but this trip in April supporting the unhoused really made us the stars of the show. One observer who looked at our brightly colored blankets on the ground said, "It looks like you brought spring with you." That day, every single blanket was placed in the hands of people in need. And none too soon as the temp forecast for DC that night was in the low thirties.

If you'd like to learn more about what the arguments were inside the court - we've got a link here to Pat LaMarche's story from the Bucks County Beacon - she was inside for the hearing. We can't thank you enough for making sure we were there to unite with many like-minded organizations to help raise our voices in solidarity with the unhoused of Grants Pass or across the United States.

The love and care you have put into making blankets that are not only functional, but also beautiful, is commendable. For some of our more talented quilters, crocheters, and knitters, here is a brand new idea - built on an older idea...student themed blankets! Our unhoused youth still in school need blankets as much as their infant siblings, parents, or grandparents. Wouldn't it be nice if the blankets keeping them warm could also reflect the things they love? Music, sports, movies, cartoons, you name it! If you are up for the challenge, you might make a young person's day along with shielding them from the elements.