Slow start continues for 'Tots'
SANDPOINT — Shannon Downey can’t help herself.
Whenever she visits estate sales and yard sales, the Chicago, Ill., artist is on the lookout for unfinished projects. She then completes them and donates the now-completed piece to charity.
“I go estate sale shopping regularly and whenever I find an unfinished embroidery project I buy it and finish it bc there’s no way that soul is resting with an unfinished project left behind,” she posted in a Twitter thread.
In the thread, Downey related how she’d stopped by a local estate sale and found a beautiful embroidered map of the United States, surrounded by squares showing the states’ names and state flowers. As she continued browsing, she stumbled upon a box of fabric and as she sorted, through it, she realized it was an incomplete embroidered quilt, each piece painstakingly cut and planned into 100 different hexagons. It was only $6.
“I opened it up and discovered it was a massive quilting project that was just begun,” she tweeted. “Every bit of the project mapped out and in this plastic tub. I sat on the floor and almost cried bc I knew I had to buy it and finish it.”
She knew, Downey told her followers — and various newspapers in the stories that followed as word spread that she planned to complete the then-unknown quilter’s project — that it would be a huge undertaking but figured she owed it to the quilter to complete the quilt.
“it was a massive … undertaking and while I embroider, I don’t quilt,” she said.
After purchasing the project, a story on goodnewsnetwork.org related that Downey did some digging and found that it had belonged to a retired nurse named Rita Smith who passed away at the age of 99 back in August.
“That woman STARTED a massive quilting project at 99,” emphasized Downey in the story and in the Twitter thread. “Now I really had to finish this thing.”
Knowing the project would take years on her own, Downey reached out to her Instagram followers and asked for help. Within 24 hours, the article reports that more than 1,000 people volunteered to help take on the project.
Downey put together a team of 50 needleworkers from across the country and assigned each a portion of the quilt to complete. In organizing which pieces to send to her volunteers, she discovered that Smith had completed two hexagons of the quilt, along with its border, prior to her passing.
As a result, Downey and her team are using those square to, as closely as they can, match Smith’s embroidery style.
Once the pieces are embroidered, a team of Chicago-based quilters will take over the project and put the final pieces together. Once complete, it will go on display at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Ky.
Like Downey and her team, each of us is part of the Sandpoint Lions Club’s team, piecing together a drive to provide a happy holiday for all of our community’s children. The task would be overwhelming if any of us tried to do it on our own but together, we can create something beautiful — a bright, merry Christmas.
Today’s donations add up to a generous $1,186.15 — bringing the total to $16,352. Generous donations were received from:
Pat & Elouise Rademacher, $140; anonymous, $100; Sandy Terry, in loving memory of Leonard and Helen Haughe, $100; Rotary Club, $100; Steven Shearer, $100; Knights of Columbus Father Kelly Council No. 2888, $100; Jay and Linda Jones, $200; Joe and Mae Lapham, $50; and the Millers, in loving memory of Jennifer, $296.15 (in coins collected from walks, couches, parking lots from the year).
The goal for this year’s campaign is $50,000 — the same as it has been in past years, but with Christmas in less than two weeks, time is running short.
So, if you can, donate what you can and help the Lions help our children have a merry Christmas.
The Lions make the most of the money by shopping bargains, and with the assistance of generous local businesses. The Toys for Tots program provides free new toys for children living in the Lake Pend Oreille School District, from Sandpoint to Clark Fork and all points in-between. A Christmas dinner for the family is also provided.
Donations for Toys for Tots can be dropped off at the front desk at the Bonner County Daily Bee, 310 Church St., from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
You can also drop off donations at Columbia Bank’s main branch in Sandpoint, 414 Church St., or at the Ponderay branch, 300 Bonner Mall Way.
Donations may be mailed to the Sandpoint Lions Club, Box 414, Sandpoint, ID 83864.
Donations made by check are preferred. Be sure to include a note with your check indicating that it is a Toys for Tots donation. If you wish to make an anonymous donation, please include a note.
If the donation is being made in someone’s name, be sure to also include a note.
Information: Sandpoint Lions Club, 208-263-4118
Caroline Lobsinger can be reached by email at clobsinger@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @CarolDailyBee.