At the Point Vicente Chapter’s September 19 meeting Barbara Winkler, Director of the Long Beach  chapter of the Quilts of Valor Foundation (QOV) enlightened us about the their work—an international organization with chapters in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom & Australia.  The mission of the Foundation is to provide service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing quilts. To date, they have given away over 4,000! accepting requests for quilts from veterans in addition to their families.

Barbara explained that the Foundation receives no funding to buy supplies to construct the quilts and is funded entirely by volunteers. The Long Beach chapter volunteers meet monthly to sew the quilt tops.  The final step is to affix a label of the branch of service and the name of the veteran receiving the quilt.

One of the ways in which they raise funds is by selling QOV pins and Teddy Bears dressed in the uniform of the various branches of service— each bear playing the song of the branch it represents.  They also raffle off one quilt every year.

At the time this article was written, Barbara Winkler and her group have awarded 450 of them this year alone.  Two survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack in WWII were among the veterans honored this year.

Point Vicente awarded Barbara with an honorarium to be used to support the Foundation.