Share a Mask

Earlier in April, Project Linus Tucson announced that we are not having meetings or Sit & Sew sessions until further notice. We posted on Facebook that Project Linus has been helping healthcare centers by bringing cloth masks to the facilities. The CDC has posted a pattern to help people make their own masks. You don’t have to be an expert sewer to make face masks.

Banner/UMC facilities in Tucson was the first “drop-off” locations to receive fabric masks from community organizations. Folks all over Tucson have been serving the community. We appreciate every person who has been making masks, whether they’re a member of Project Linus or not.

Aside, from Banner, there are other healthcare facilities for need our help. You can follow us on Facebook for updates about ways to serve our community. In the meantime, keep up the great work you’re going on blankets! Let’s keep making blanket hugs so that we can share them when we are able to visit our recipients.

Mystery Yarn Challenge

In the past few years, Project Linus has held a Quilting Mystery Challenge. We’ve decided that it’s time to offer that fun to those who knit and crochet!

Sign up to join the Knit & Crochet Along by visiting Project Linus National’s website and clicking the register now button.

Every two weeks, we will release a new part of each pattern. Each pattern has 5 parts and at the end of the 10-week period we will have the Big Reveal, where the complete look of the blanket will available.

This event is a fundraiser for Project Linus. Your donation of $15 (or $30 if you choose to register for both the knit and crochet patterns) will allow you access whichever pattern you registered to make a complete blanket. The blanket is yours to keep, or you can donate it back to Project Linus Tucson to share with a child in need.

Blanket Numbers

2017 was a busy year for Project Linus, both nationally and here in Tucson. Let’s look at the numbers.

  • There are 295 Project Linus chapters in the US.
  • The Tucson chapter deliveres 6,845 blankets in 2017.
  • Project Linus Tucson has delivered 72,945 blankets since our start in spring of 1999.
  • 6,673,024 blankets have been distributed across the country since Project Linus emerged in 1995.
  • The average blanket is approximately 60″ long. If we were to connect all of the blankets, thatwe would have 6,319 miles of blankets.  That is as tall as 1,151 Mt. Everests, or the length of 92,680 football fields!
  • We are an all-volunteer organization (with the exception of our national president and her part-time assistant). The average coordinator donate approximately 20 hours per week to Project Linus. If the 295 coordinators were paid at $8.00 per hour, Project Linus would need $2,454,400 a year (or $8,320 per coordinator).

We sincerely appreciate all of the people who donate their time and skills to Project Linus. We couldn’t share blanket hugs with children without you.

Hurricane Survivors Need Blanket Hugs

Project Linus National is collecting handmade blankets to help the families impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas, and Hurricane Irma in Florida. We have set a goal of collecting 5000 blankets to share. In order to have a coordinated delivery, we have specific guidelines.

  • Blankets should be in the 40″x 50″ approximate size. Absolutely nothing smaller than a 36″ square blanket will be accepted.
  • Fleece, quilts, soft knitted and crocheted blankets will all be accepted.
  • To be included with the Project Linus delivery, all blankets must be handmade.
  • We are also asking for monetary donations to help with shipping costs. Checks can be sent to our chapter coordinator. Please make checks payable to Project Linus Tucson and send them to the address below.
  • All blankets must be checked, labeled and ready to ship by September 23rd.

If you have any questions, please contact our chapter coordinator by phone or via email.

Rene Lassise, Tucson Chapter Coordinator
7981 S. Farmview Place
Tucson, AZ 85756
520-574-2103
rmrjlassise@q.com

Thank you for helping Project Linus share blanket hugs with families in need.

Amazon Smile Helps Project Linus

Are you an Amazon shopper? Great! Shopping with Amazon Smile is a simple way to donate to Project Linus. You’ll find the exact same prices as shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization. It’s that easy.

For more ways to support Project Linus Tucson, check out our Donations page.

Join the Summer 26 Miles in 26 Days Challenge

Summer is always a “slow time” for Project Linus donations. Many of us travel, and Tucson’s winter visitors beat the heat by leaving the desert. Here’s a way to stay active and contribute to Project Linus, regardless of where you are.

Please join Project Linus for the Summer 26 Miles in 26 Days Challenge. It’s quick, it’s healthy, it’s fun, AND you can help Project Linus in the process. The challenge starts on June 20th, the official start of summer, and ends on July 29th.

You can achieve your goal in any way you choose: biking, running, walking, swimming, rollerblading, etc. You must complete one mile (or more) per day, and you must do this for twenty-six days. (However, you do have thirty days to complete the challenge, which gives you a little “wiggle room” to finish). If you can’t complete a full mile all at once, break it into portions. Walk a quarter mile four times a day, or break it into steps. One mile is approximately 10,000 steps.

Anyone can participate. How about challenging your friends, family, guild members, church friends, and neighbors to this twenty-six day fitness challenge? Participants who complete the 26 Day Challenge will receive a beautiful Special Event Medal. To sweeten the deal, if you and the people you invited both complete the challenge, you will get a extra prize.

How to Register:
There is a $19 registration fee. Part of the registration fee will be donated to Project Linus. Just click here to register.

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Project Linus Honored by Washington State Senate

Last month, the Washington State Senate today passed Senate Resolution 8646, honoring the participants of Project Linus for providing handmade blankets to seriously ill and traumatized children.

Formed in 1995, Project Linus gained national notoriety in the wake of the Columbine High School shooting, when Project Linus organizers founded National Make a Blanket Day, sending handmade blankets to local chapters in Denver. The Tucson chapter of Project Linus was founded in 1999.

There are eleven Project Linus chapters in Washington state, and their blanketeers create, collect and distribute thousands of blankets to children in need every year, just as we do here in Tucson. Washington State Senator Sam Hunt said that he sponsored the resolution because “the simple gesture of providing blankets made with love to children diagnosed with severe illnesses so often brings a moment of peace in the face of pain.”

We’re very proud of our fellow blanketeers in Washington and applaud them for their recognition.

Every Blanket Counts

Yarned and Dangerous

Addysen with her grandmother Judy

Many people think that Project Linus is for retired folks, but that’s just not the case. Crocheting and knitting have found a popular resurgence within the hipster community, and that has trickled out to other young adults. Addysen Savage is a perfect example of people who have embraced the hooking hobby. She’s a fifteen-year-old high school freshman from the Phoenix area.

Addysen started volunteering with Project Linus West Valley Chapter in Fall 2014. She had been hospitalized and decided that she wanted to make blankets “to give back for all the times I received one when I was in the hospital. It also gives me a sigh of relief knowing other kids can get what I got when they are in a crisis.” The first meeting Addysen attended got her “hyped up. I learned how to do a double stitch, and then a single stitch. I was able to finish my blanket for the month, plus I even made another one on top of it.” [Read more…]

Wrapped in Blankets of Love

Linus loves his blankeyEarlier this month, blanketeers from Southwestern chapters of Project Linus gathered for a regional conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 85 showed up to sit and sew, crochet, or knit together and share our skills with each other. It was a terrific way to exchange patterns and ideas and our love for children in a very jovial atmosphere.

Eve Buck is the coordinator of the West Valley chapter of Project Linus. She and Judie Aggie, coordinator for the Fountain Hills/Northeast Valley chapter, coordinated the regional conference.

Eve explained that she joined Project Linus in 2005 when she saw a story on a local news station. When Eve retired from being a teacher, “I decided that I needed to find something to do. I started knitting and crocheting again. I thought that I would just make some blankets and I’d be done. That was great. Then the next thing you know, I’m the assistant coordinator. And now I’m the chapter coordinator, and I’ve been doing that for the last five years.” Eve says that she has stayed involved with Project Linus for so long because, “I meet the most fantastic people. I am able to help children, which is my true passion. If I can still help children by making blankets, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Many Project Linus volunteers share similar feelings. [Read more…]