‘Comfort quilts’ donated to wildfire victims
The donation of quilts came from all across Canada
“It was pretty cool to see the response and everyone so willing and generous. The quilts just started arriving, this is the result – a church full of quilts” Debra Howard
More than 100 quilts donated by quilters from across Canada have been collected and distributed to people who lost their homes in the Barrington Lake wildfire.
Digby businesswoman Debra Howard, who owns Quilts by the Bay fabric store, spearheaded the movement.
“The fires happened and we decided at the shop we would do something to show that we were all concerned and cared about what was going on and we wanted to give them back something that would bring a little bit of joy so I put something on my (Facebook) page," said Howard. "I’ve got a lot of customers and asked for donations to see where it would go. We received well over 100 quilts to be donated, thanks to all my customers. Without them, none of this would be possible.”
Howard said quilters from all across Canada made donations.
“A lady from Quebec donated five or six. We had lots from New Brunswick,
P.E.I., all over. I have a lot of customers that follow me on my quilt page and when I make a request it goes out all over everywhere so that’s how everybody knew," said
Howard. "It was pretty cool to see the response and everyone so willing and generous. The quilts just started arriving, this is the result – a church full of quilts”
The quilts were available for pick up on July 25 in Clyde River, Shelburne County, in the former St. Matthew’s United Church on Highway 103, which is now owned and operated by the non-profit Clyde River Society and Cemetery.
It was the first public event in the historic building, which
dates back to 1875, since its steeple was hit by lighting in 2021. The building sustained fire, smoke and water damage.
“Our church was hit by lighting and the steeple caught fire. Now we're helping the people who lost their homes to fire. It comes full circle. That's what we're here for. We want to keep this building untapped for the community,” said Urania Crowell, a volunteer with the society.
“When it was struck by lighting a few years ago a group of us got together because they said they were going to demolish it and we didn't want it demolished. We wanted to save it for the community and we wanted to be able to keep the cemetery up after that,” Crowell said.
“After a lot of struggles, we were able to secure it with the help of the Cape Sable Historical Society. Since then we've been doing what we could to do the repairs. The upstairs here wasn't nowhere near as bad as they led us to believe.”
Electricity has been restored to the building. The ceiling by the main doorway that was water damaged from the fire has been repaired. And a new shorter steeple was installed.
“We did a few repairs outside and put a new steeple up,” Crowell said. “We were not able to build it back as high as it was because of the cost, but we had another steeple put on there. We're slowly getting everything back to rights. Our basement isn't finished yet. Our main goal is to do anything to support the community and that's what this is for. We knew this was a help.”
With the help of volunteers, quilts ranging in size from baby quilts to king-size filled the pews in the church for people to choose from. The designs ranged from modern, traditional, “a little bit of everything,” said Howard.
“This is an extra special quilt,” she said, as she held it up.
“It was made by a 99-yearold
lady. She brought it into the shop and asked me to quilt it for her so I put in the frame and quilted it. When she came back to pick it up she tried to pay me for the quilting and I said no because I had people donate money for the quilting so I didn't want to take anything,” said Howard. “I said to her leave it and I will bind it so you don't have to bind it. She said,
‘Dear that's the most fun part of making a quilt,' so this 99-year-old lady took it home bound it, came back and gave this quilt to donate.
“Just amazing, 99 years old,” said Howard. “I hope I'm still doing this at that age.”
Howard also donated a quilt to the society to help them raise funds for maintaining the building.
Crowell said once the interior of the building is completely restored, it will be made available to the community “for meetings like AA, mental health, any of those things.”
“We will rent it out for weddings. All the money will go to repairs. We're also hoping to have non-denominational services here too, maybe a Christmas service this year,” said Crowell. “The acoustics in this building are beautiful so we want to have concerts, anything like a kitchen party, anything that will help the community. That's what we want to do.”