Linus Van Pelt, the security blanket donning Peanuts character was once known to say, “I know there is a lesson to be learned here somewhere, but I don’t know what it is.” Linus obviously didn’t know how right he was when he uttered that remark while clutching his blankie, thumb in mouth. Life is full of lessons; every moment we live we experience and every experience is full of lessons to be learned, things to be taught, and mistakes to be made. When you’re someone who is sick or has been sick you spend your time on earth searching for answers to all your questions, especially the looming question of why me? We search high and low, left and right for the answers. We ask our priests, rabbis, spiritual leaders, family and friends for answers to all of our questions. We seek out old values and new traditions. Sometimes we even type our problems into the search box and let Google reveal the answer (or at least, the most clicked on answer). But maybe we’re searching in the wrong places, asking the wrong people, and combing the wrong books. Maybe to obtain the answer to our question, why me? it should really be phrased as, what will be the lesson I learn from this experience? Perhaps then our answers may be more clearly revealed to us. Perhaps then our answers will come in the form of fabric, thread, batting, and love. It’s no wonder that Project Linus, the nonprofit organization which hands out quilts to children of all ages in hospitals, was named for the philosophizing Linus Van Pelt. Linus had it right: it all leads back to the blankie.

Project Linus began in 1995 when project originator Karen Loucks read an article about a young girl who survived chemotherapy with her blankie at her side. Since then Project Linus has made it their mission to provide children from premature to eighteen years with a quilt, not only for their stay in the hospital, but for their life.
I got involved with Project Linus when I was sixteen. My mother, an avid creative sewer, told me about the Project and handed me a panel quilt to work on. It was simple; I just had to stitch around letters. But, somehow this seemed tough to me. It was all too emotional. Some sick child would be getting my quilts? Too much emotion for an already emotional teenager. I didn’t quilt again until after September 11th. Being from Long Island, we knew many families affected by the buildings’ collapse, and I knew I had to help, but I wasn’t sure how. I sat at my sewing machine and literally didn’t move for a whole day. I made two twin-size bed quilts for my siblings and haven’t stopped sewing since. I knew this was my therapy, this was my connection to the greater world, and this was how I could help. Ever since then I have led “Patch Drives” at my high school and college in which people could draw on patches, which I sewed into quilts. I have taught people how to quilt, and have donated over sixty quilts to Project Linus. Quilting for Project Linus is without a doubt the most rewarding experience of my life. With each quilt I make, I wonder about the child who will get it; I hope for their happiness and health, and dream that someday I’ll see them, healthy, grasping their quilt dancing through life.
In my opinion, Project Linus is such a powerful organization because not only do I believe that quilts can change the world by warming hearts and helping people get healthy, but people can choose how much time and energy they donate. Involvement spans from simply drawing on a patch, which will find its way into a quilt, to making a small nine-patch quilt, all the way to making a giant quilt fit for a teen. Project Linus is unlike any other organization on this planet, for it provides warmth in places that warmth is often overlooked.
One cannot overestimate the meaning that a blankie has to a sick child in the hospital. For one, the quilts that are delivered to them are full of color and pictures, which give a child in a scary and cold hospital room something to look at and develop stories around. At eight months old I had to spend time in the hospital for a heart defect and my parents and grandmother lamented that there was nothing stimulating for children to focus on; there was nothing to take their mind off the fact that they were sick and in the hospital. Granted, hospitals now are more child friendly than over two decades ago, but a quilt is a personal piece of visual stimulation. No two quilts are the same, and neither are any two children.
Second, and most practically, quilts are warm! Many of the quilts from Project Linus are given to babies born early and residing in the neonatal intensive care unit. Their tiny bodies are often too tiny to be held by warm hands or placed on a warm body. But, no body is too tiny for a quilt. The quilts provide the babies with warmth, which reminds them of being in utero and therefore, of being protected, safe, and loved. If a child isn’t warm and doesn’t feel safe, they will not thrive and therefore they will not get better. Sometimes the recipients of quilts or their parents will write to Project Linus to thank them for the quilt. One such mother wrote in and described how her premature baby was given a quilt. Since the baby had never been to its home the mother brought the quilt home and washed it with the family’s clothing, than brought it back to the baby. She covered her baby with her family’s strength and love; the baby grew stronger because it could smell its family’s scent and it smelled of home and safety. While getting healthy isn’t directly proportional to smelling a quilt, there is no doubt in my mind that being snuggled in a homemade quilt lifts the morale and strengthens the soul. It is only though the soul’s strength, love, hope, and faith that the body can heal.
I think the most important part of giving quilts to children is the propriety that having one’s own quilt can bring. When a child is in the hospital their sense of control over their own life is torn apart and thrown away. No longer can they dictate what they want and when they want it, but they’re on a new schedule, with new people and in a new location. Not only is everything changing and new, but things are happening physically to their body. There is nothing scarier than the loss of control of one’s body, which children (and adults!) often feel as soon as they enter the hospital. Giving a quilt to a child, specifically to that child, with their own pattern, fabrics and colors means that now the child has something that is theirs to control. No one can take away their quilt. It is at that moment that a simple, handmade quilt becomes a blankie. A quilt is just a quilt until it is loved; it is at that time that it becomes what Peanuts’ creator Charles Schultz coined as the “security blanket.”
It’s no wonder that Linus Van Pelt was never seen without his famous blankie. Blankies bestow a sense of power, comradeship, and knowledge that you are loved. When one questions what lesson will I learn from this experience, it often takes time, sometimes a lot of time, to finally receive the answer which satisfies. However, imagine being a child in a hospital bed, wondering what’s going on around you and scared out of your wits. You may feel alone, very alone, and very little. The world goes on spinning and here you are stuck in a bed and sick, but then someone comes in and hands you a quilt, a beautiful, colorful, handmade quilt. It is then that you realize there is more to life than the hospital bed. Someone out there cares. Someone out there was thinking of you and loves you and wants to keep you warm. Each quilt from Project Linus is made with loving hands; and I do believe that each quilt, somehow finds the right child to protect and empower. Therefore, perhaps the answer lies neither in the stars, nor in genius minds, but in the simple, traditional, and warm quilt. What more to life is there than being loved, kept warm, and visually stimulated by beautiful images? It may seem ineffective when pieces of fabric are sprawled out over rooms of your house and your sewing machine is covered in thread, but just remember that somewhere out there is a child waiting for your quilt- the quilt which will not only become a best friend, but an answer to all the questions.
How can YOU help a child and donate to Project Linus? For one, check out Project Linus’ website at to read letters, hear stories, and learn more about the organization. You could donate a handmade quilt to your local chapter you could seek out other quilters in your area and make a quilt together; or you could contact me about starting up a Patch Drive (where people of all ages draw on quilt patches that either I, or someone you know, sew into a quilt) in your local school, church, Girl Scout Troop, etc. The possibilities are limitless, and feel free to contact me if you need some guidance. But, remember all it takes to help is the desire to spread warmth and the yearning to give love.
If you have questions or want some quilting help please check out my website www.oliviaquilts.com.
Olivia March Dreizen, © 2008 butyoudontlooksick.com
________________________________________________
* This article was written by one of our members and staff writers. It shows yet another example that we can all help, volunteer or fundraise for worthy causes. It can be a penny drive, volunteering time, or even making a quilt! Find something you love and do it for others!