Quilts of Valour provide comfort for military veterans
A group of 17 military veterans can now wrap themselves up in a quilt of love after receiving Quilts of Valour this past Saturday in Swift Current.
Marcie Erick, Swift Current representative for Quilts of Valour Canada, reached out to contact a group of veterans from across Saskatchewan and into Alberta in order to present them with quilts recognizing their valued service in the military. Included in the group were a pair of World War II veterans, a Korean War Veteran, plus more recent military servicemen and servicewomen who had been posted at various locations.
“The focus is to present quilts to ill or injured veterans in Canada, and just to wrap them in something that’s like a quilted hug. And to let them know that somebody’s always there, somebody’s always listening, and somebody cares. And we, as a group of people that work on these quilts, we’re happy to do it for them because they deserve it. They should be recognized for everything that they’ve done for us,” Erick explained shortly after making the quilt presentations.
She was pleased to see standing room only attendance at the ceremony which was hosted as a part of the two day Swift Current Quilters’ Guild quilt show. Members from area Legions, local Cadets, along with family, friends and fellow quilters attended a brief ceremony.
“It means a lot to me that that many people would come out and show their support for our veterans, they deserve it more than they get recognized for.”
The quilts were a project primarily by members of the Swift Current Quilter’s Guild, but other quilters outside of the group lent their talents to the project.
Erick said she was attracted to the program because of the loss of her own uncle who served overseas in Bosnia and Croatia, and they lost him to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 1999. She even approached the Quilts of Valour Canada board to get them on board with recognizing that PTSD is indeed an injury, and veterans suffering from the disorder are deserving of quilts.
“I went to their board and I pled my case on how PTSD is in fact an injury, you just can’t see it. It’s actually just as much of an injury as anything else,” she explained.
She noted that the number of Canadians veterans who live with PTSD is unbelievably high, and most don’t get the support they need.
“I can’t do a lot on that part. I don’t know what to say at the right time. But I can quilt. And I can wrap you up in it.”
A number of the quilt recipients were members of Canadian Army Veteran Motorcycle Units which are comprised of military veterans.
Gull Lake’s Steven Stanford was one of the local organizers of last year’s Rolling Barrage which journeyed through the Southwest as part of its coast-tocoast awareness event which took aim at combatting PTSD. He was responsible for locating many of the veterans who received quilts on May 5.