News

At a recent Coffee Creek Quilters member meeting, several instructors reported heartwarming stories about students who have been released from CCCF. Normally we don’t have contact with former students after their release, but occasionally we receive emails or run into them in the community. Chris told us about a student who found a job at a Newberg hair salon within nine days of her release date. Julie ran into a former student who re-entered the workforce in her field as a physical therapist with a highly regarded Metro-area PT clinic. And Martha received a thank-you email for a CCQ release kit from a student who was so thrilled to receive a sewing machine that she set it up and started to use it as soon as she got home – didn’t even take her coat off.

You can help Coffee Creek Quilters earn donations by shopping at your local Fred Meyer store. Fred Meyer is donating money to nonprofits based on customers who link their rewards card to their favorite nonprofit. This does not affect your personal rewards points; both accounts earn points. It’s a win-win for you and for the library.

Instructions for linking your Fred Meyer Rewards Card to our organization can be found on the Fred Meyer website.

The Coffee Creek Quilters program is featured this month in two national quilting magazines, providing a peak inside the classroom at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. “Changing Women’s Lives in Prison” by Kathy Kerler appears in the August 2014 edition of The Quilt Life, a bimonthly publication of American Quilters Society. It’s available at newsstands or via the AQS website. “Coffee Creek Quilters: Freedom Behind Bars” by Nancy Hill was published in the August/September 2014 edition of The Quilter. You can purchase The Quilter at newsstands or via their website.

Thirty of the sixty kids attending a special summer camp for grieving children will receive quilts this summer made by CCQ members. We made the quilts for Camp Erin, where young people learn to grieve and heal following the death of a loved one. Camp Erin is a national program funded by the Moyer Foundation. Camps are held in 45 locations in the U.S. and Canada. The camp is free for kids aged 6 to 17; funding comes from the Moyer Foundation and local groups. Oregon’s Camp Erin is administered by the Providence Foundation and takes place this year at Camp Kuratli in Boring, OR, August 15-17.

A quilt show with quilts made by women incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility is on display at the Canby Public Library through the end of April. The exhibit also includes instructor-made quilts which are being offered for sale as part of our fundraising. On Tuesday, April 29th Mary Ann McCammon, an instructor in our Thursday afternoon class, will make a presentation about our program at the library. Mary Ann’s talk starts at 6:30 pm. The quilt shown at left is a student’s second quilt. CCQ’s students learn the basics of quilting with their first quilts: cutting with a rotary cutter, sewing an accurate quarter inch seam, and basic quilting techniques. With second quilts, they learn more advanced techniques such as half square triangles. The Canby library is located at 292 N. Holly, Canby, OR. Please check the Canby Library’s website for their hours.

The Independent Order of Foresters is partnering with Coffee Creek Quilters to make quilts for patients at the Portland VA Medical Center. Foresters purchased enough patriotic-themed fabrics and quilt batting for 14 quilts. Then volunteers from Foresters and CCQ came together on March 15th for a kit-making session. Over the next few months, students in the quilting classes at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility will sew the quilts. When the quilts are finished, Foresters volunteers will deliver the throw-sized quilts to the veterans. Funding for the fabric purchase comes from the Foresters Community Grants program, an initiative that enables Foresters members to apply for grants of up to $2,500 to fund volunteer activities that are meaningful to them and to their own communities.