This group of women just donated their 1,000th homemade quilt to the Moose Lodge Warming Shelter. (Susan McNeil/paNOW)

By Susan McNeil

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For the 1,000^th time, a group of women in Prince Albert has completed a handmaid quilt for the Moose Lodge, where quilts get passed on to one of the city’s homeless people.

Margaret Ferguson said that she is helped by a group of women who also feel compelled to help others in a practical way.

“Nobody when they were small said I’m going to grow up and be homeless or on the street,” said Ferguson. “We’re all in this community together.”

She started sewing quilts after her husband passed away in 2012.

“I had to do something and I felt this is what I was supposed to do,” she explained. “They need something to keep warm. Everybody deserves to be warm.”

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She started sewing in her basement but as the concept grew and other people joined the effort, they started diving up the work.

Two of many volunteers work on a finishing one of many quilts donated to the Moose Lodge. (submitted/Margaret Ferguson)

They’ve gone from sewing 40 quilts in a year to finishing well over 100 and are always on the lookout for heavy fabrics.

The women get denim donations from Value Village, Fabricland will donate fabrics that remain unsold and some thread.

“We couldn’t do it without all the people donating jeans and their time,” Ferguson said.

Sewing the quilts is a group effort, with help from groups like Abbey House or the Girl Guides.

Natalie Clyke, who works for the PAGC and is part of the Moose Lodge Warming Shelter effort, said the community is important.

“It’s an opportunity through acts of kindness to be involved and have a direct impact on somebody’s life,” she said. “That blanket is what provides the opportunity for a wellness-check so they come back the next day.”

Denim quilts are very heavy and therefore very warm and very well-received by the people they are given to.

“‘Is that one of those heavy blankets? Oh my gosh,’” says Clyke of the reaction she sees.

The blankets are especially helpful for those ‘living rough’, a term used for people with no shelter at all.

“For us to have that resource, it’s dignity. For so many, they’re told no and for the short period of time they’re in our care, we can say yes. That’s helps on a cellular level that it’s OK to ask for help,” she said.

Clyke is planning something special for the 1,000^th quilt and is thinking of having the Lodge clients write their names on it or put the names of people who lived and died on the streets in Prince Albert.

For the group of sewers, they are just happy to see the quilts in use, wherever they go.

“These quilts are given with no strings attached and it warms our heart when we see a quilt around the shoulders of somebody or a quilt in a cardboard box against a building,” said Ferguson.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com