Quilters put down their needles, pack goodies for GIs

Quilters and gift boxes; Lois Pedersen at far left

Racine's Lighthouse Quilters' Guild met this morning, but there wasn't a single needle, piece of cloth or sewing machine in evidence.

Instead, the ladies were packing boxes for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan -- soldiers who are their grandsons, or the sons of friends and neighbors.

There are 150 members of the Lighthouse Quilters' Guild, and all of them wrote cards and greetings. The Guild held its annual Christmas party Monday, and members brought bags and bags of beef jerky, popcorn, dried soups, tuna pouches, granola bars ... the kind of treats soldiers anywhere would be happy to receive.

Today, more than a dozen of the quilters packed that food, along with toiletries, CDs, DVDs, books, puzzles and Beanie Babies (more about Beanies in a moment) and mailed them off. It took two minivans to haul everything to the Post Office.

The project was organized by Lois Pedersen, whose earlier effort convinced the quilters to make pillowcases for the troops. Thousands of pillowcases.

"I started doing pillowcases in May 2005," Lois said. "I was just going to do 12. But then some friends in the Guild heard about it and we did 30. Then 100." Before they were done, the Lighthouse Quilters Guild had made 2,500 pillowcases for the troops. "It was not as I expected at all!" Lois laughed. "Isn't that cool?"

The Guild received appreciative letters from many GIs. "As soon as the pillowcases arrived, I put them on my bunk," one GI wrote. Another sent photos: a bare mattress pad with the Guild's pillowcases on it.

Today's food and goodies project has as its antecedent a small town in North Platte, Nebraska. Lois was clearly moved by a book, "Once Upon a Town: The miracle of the North Platte Canteen," by Bob Greene. It tells how, during World War II, volunteers met every train hauling troops through North Platte on their way to war. Met the trains and gave the young soldiers on board sandwiches, fruit and good wishes during what usually was a 10-minute stop. Every train, every day, for four years. Some 3,000-5,000 soldiers a day; more than six million in all. (A good-sized excerpt from the book is HERE.)

North Platte's was a complete volunteer effort. As was today's Quilters' Guild project. Lois made dolls this summer, sold them and donated the money for postage, and the Quilters provided the food and other items, and cheerfully packed them up for shipment today.

But what about those Beanie Babies? One has to ask: What would a self-respecting GI in Iraq do with one of those? "Actually, we've done this before, and the GIs gave the Beanie Baby to a little girl. She came back later in the day and told them where the land mines were ... so it saved lives," Lois said.

Today's shipment comprised almost two dozen boxes. Joyce Guillien helped pack a box addressed to her grandson, Kolin, of Franksville, who serves in Iraq in an Army Stryker unit. "What he can't use, he can share," she said, while expressing the hope that none of her other four grandsons finds himself in Iraq.