Submitted by Dianne McD.
A few weeks ago, Metropatch was contacted by the Friends of Hopewell House. They are looking for comfort quilts for the rooms of their hospice facility, which is opening this coming fall. Jill Citro is the Comfort Quilt Program coordinator for the house, and she has sent the following information about what they need:
For the past 30 years, Hopewell House, located in the Southwest Hills in Portland, helped thousands of individuals and their loved ones navigate with grace through one of the most profound times in their lives — death and dying. In the fall of 2019, Legacy, who owned Hopewell House was forced to close due to financial constraints.
Friends of Hopewell House was established and will reopen the facility in fall of 2022 as the region’s only residential hospice facility. The home will be a 12-13 bed facility, each topped with a donated quilt, and will include a pediatric room (as sad as that is). It is estimated that Hopewell House will once again be able to serve approximately 150 individuals per year. Hopewell will be caring for those with the greatest need and the fewest options.
The Quilt Program will offer patients a quilt of their choice, handmade by generous and creative community members who have donated their time, talents and materials. Each quilt will remain with the patient during their care. Upon the patient’s death, their quilt will be part of their “passage observance” with their family, friends and caregivers, and the family will be invited to take the quilt home with them. As you can see, the quilt becomes an extremely meaningful, moving and cherished gift.
All are beds are twin-sized, so the quilt sizes should be a minimum of 50” x 70” with a maximum of 70” x 84”. Lap quilts will also be offered. Those quilts should be roughly 33” x 45” minimum to a maximum of 48” x 65”.
Jill has indicated that they have a long-arm quilter who will do the quilting, if needed. She will also make arrangements for pick up of donated quilts. You can reach her by clicking the button below, or you will find this information on our Community Service Resource page.
I’ve also included a link to a short video about Hopewell House. While they use the video to garner monetary donations, you will be able to hear the history of the house.
Isn’t it amazing that the finished product of something we love to do will provide such comfort to others!
Contact Comfort Quilt Program CoordinatorFriends of Hopewell House Video
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Thank you everyone for your support and interest in donating comfort quilts to residents of Hopewell House! I am available to answer any questions, can can be reached at jillcitro@hotmail.com or 503-758-3445 ~Jill Citro, Quilting Program Coordinator for Friends of Hopewell House
I’m glad Hopewell House is re-opening. (A close friend is on the board.) It will be a pleasure to make and donate quilts to those receiving hospice care there.
So thankful to hear about this need. Was looking for a place to give to.
It is so awesome that they have a longarm quilter willing to do the quilting as this is often a stumbling block for me (and maybe more of us) when doing quilt donations!
My questions are: do we donate backing and batting? Perhaps also ready-to-go binging? Or does the quilted quilt come back to us for binding? Thanks?
Hello Ruth! This is Jill, the Quilting Program Coordinator for Hopewell House. At this time, we don’t quite have the resources to provide backing, batting or binding. As we receive more donations, we may be able to provide this in the future. For now, we would collect a top, backing and batting from you, have it quilted, and then ideally return to you for binding. The binding step is probably something we could find another volunteer (or myself!) to do, though, if that is a difficult step for you to complete. I hope this answers your questions, and please feel free to reach out to me any time!
Hopewell House was so missed during the years it was closed. Several of my patients spent their last weeks at Hopewell House and I so appreciate their work at giving comfort to families and patients at the end of life. This is a wonderful project and I hope folks from our guild will participate.
Perhaps we could collect any donations at our silent auction. I would be happy to connect with Hopewell House and take our donatons.