Four women from the Lewiston (Idaho) Church have made it their mission to create handmade quilts to help the more than 80 children at the Northwest Children's Home in Lewiston. In December, the Children's Home received 25 quilts and in the last several months, 36 more quilts have been made and delivered. The "Quilts of Love" group, which includes Esther Steffanson, Dee Patton, Betty Johnson and Shirley Benson, spends between 10 to 20 hours of work on each quilt, depending on the size or complexity of the design. When kids finish the programs at the Children’s Home, they take the quilts with them.
“Because each quilt is totally different, it’s an area in which kids can express a unique side to their personality by picking a pattern or color scheme that they love,” says Lori Skelton, Children's Home marketing and development director. More than 65 percent of the residents are boys, so the group works to customize the quilts with bright primary colors and themes of airplanes, cars or trucks.
Established in Lewiston, Idaho, in 1908, the Northwest Children’s Home is a residential treatment center for troubled youth. Kids ranging in age from 6 to 18 years old, live at the home full time. Most of the children have come from situations of abuse, abandonment and neglect. Clinical therapists oversee the programming and each child receives individual and group counseling, medical services and an accredited education.
For more information on the home, visit www.northwestchildrenshome.org/. Or contact Lori Skelton, at (208) 743-9404, Ext. 205.
