On December 23rd Portland TV station KATU broadcast a story about a choir for women incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. The choir program’s goal is similar to ours — to teach a life-enhancing skill that will improve the women’s chance of a successful return to society after leaving prison. We invite you to watch the video on KATU’s website.
CCQ instructors made 255 colorful pillowcases for donation to kids in foster care this holiday season. The pillowcases will be distributed through Embrace Oregon, a nonprofit that partners with the Oregon Department of Human Services in providing for some of the needs of children in foster care. Making pillowcases is just one of many ways you can help kids in foster care through Embrace Oregon. Here are some others:
Please visit the Embrace Oregon website to learn more.
Coffee Creek Quilters donates around 100 student-made quilts every year to a variety of organizations. Last week we heard a sweet story about one of our donation quilts.
This particular quilt was one of twenty-one donated to CASA of Jackson County in Medford. Diane Campbell, an instructor in our Thursday class had delivered the quilts in January 2015. Last week one of Diane’s students told her that one of her dorm mates had received a photo of her grandbaby who is in foster care in Medford. In the picture, the baby was wrapped in one of our quilts. The label was visible and showed the quilt was made by another dorm mate who is a good friend of the grandma.
We instructors were touched by the story. Mary Shiffer, an instructor in our Wednesday class summed it up nicely for us: “This is a lovely story, proving the interconnectedness of humanity. What we do individually with CCQ is extremely important. I cannot solve the ills of our world by myself but I can change the experiences and attitude of one woman at a time. For each of these women, what they learn about giving, receiving, working hard, sharing, helping, laughing, crying, courage, trusting and more than I could ever name, changes the world for her and also for me. This story reminds me why I even give up Wednesday night Winter Hawks hockey games to be at Coffee Creek. For me, I remember the Christopher Movement motto, ‘It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.'”