Receiving quilts from Quilts of Valor Saturday afternoon were Korean War veterans in Eden Valley, from left, commander Al Mueller, Deb Hesse, Vicki Peschon, Harry Weber, Arnold Thielen, Maynard Yungk, Greg Utecht, Harold Meierhofer, Ralph Hennen, Mike Dockendorf, Andy Arnold, Paul Anderson, and Leo Sitzman. Not pictured in this group are Leland Danielson, Loren Dittman, Peter Gruenes, Karl Hendel, George Kummet, Stanley Marple, Valentine Riley, George M. Ruhland, Thomas Ruhland, and Richard Swenson.
By Jean Doran Matua, Editor
The Eden Valley American Legion Post #381 held its membership dinner Saturday afternoon, Sept. 22, at Dino’s Lakeside Club in Eden Valley. A special part of the program was presenting 51 quilts to Eden Valley Legion members, a start toward providing quilts to all 174 members.
Vicki Peschon of Eden Valley is a member of the Arctic Sun chapter of Quilts of Valor. The chapter is based in Hutchinson, where she works, and it’s the nearest to Eden Valley. Peschon is the ringleader – or perhaps the benevolent taskmaster – behind the current project of making and distributing all 174 quilts within three years.
Since January of this year, Peschon and fellow quilters Deb Hesse and Donna Markwood, both of Watkins, along with other volunteers in Eden Valley have made 51 quilts. Peschon has them on pace for completing seven quilts a month until they’re finished. Peschon uses a long-arm sewing machine to machine-quilt all of the quilts.
All the many hours of work on the quilts is donated. A true work of love. The trio meets on the first Saturday each month at the Eden Valley Community Center, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Anyone else interested in helping is invited to come, too. There’s cutting, stitching, pressing, binding, and more that can be done to help, and you don’t need to commit to an entire quilt. All help is welcomed.
Donations are also critical to the work of Quilts of Valor Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Donations of cotton fabric, preferably in red-white-and-blue, or donations or gift cards to be used to purchase fabric are necessary to the project. Peschon is the contact person for that locally.
Each quilt comes with the name of the recipient, laundry instructions, and the names of those who stitched, quilted, and bound it.
With 51 quilts and 174 members, distribution was determined as follows: two World War II veterans, Willis Blomker and Robert Schoenecker (who were not present); 20 Korean War veterans; and then to those members with the longest membership in the Eden Valley American Legion. The quilts of those who were not present will be delivered to them individually.
The Quilts of Valor Foundation was founded in 2003 by a woman whose son was serving in Iraq. In these past 15 years, more than 200,000 hand-made quilts have been awarded to past and present servicemen and women across the United States.