Providing Comfort

Children of service members often have a difficult time when their parents are deployed.
With that in mind, more than 200 volunteers participated Friday in a three-hour quilting marathon, part of the Armed Services YMCA Operation Kid Comfort Program and Greater DC Cares’ National Day of Service and Remembrance, at RFK Stadium in Washington.
Operation Kid Comfort provides free personalized quilts to children ages 6 and under, and pillows to children ages 7 and older, said Susan Simms, manager of branch and corporate relations for the ASYMCA. From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., 20 quilting stations were set up in the concourse of the stadium, with volunteers producing dozens of quilts.
Operation Kid Comfort began at Fort Bragg in North Carolina in 2003.
“A grandmother was having difficulty with her grandson,” explained Simms. “He was a toddler. He was carrying everything around that had to do with his dad.“
The grandmother came up with the idea of putting pictures of the young boy’s dad on a quilt that he could carry around with him.
“The grandson just gravitated to it. The folks down there developed it into a full-fledged program,” she continued.
Parents or loved ones of children with a deployed parent can request quilts through an online form found at asymca.org and send it along with six to 10 pictures to be included on the quilt to Simms at simms@asymca.org. Simms then contacts the appropriate Operation Kid Comfort quilting group or volunteer with the request. Most of the volunteers furnish the material needed to make the quilt, but ASYMCA provides the material for volunteers who cannot afford them but still want to make a quilt.
In addition, a quilted square on each quilt displays the logo of the deployed parent’s branch of service, as well as an additional square for the Operation Kid Comfort logo and the child’s name.
Since its inception six years ago, Operation Kid Comfort has spread to six ASYMCA locations across the country and has delivered 6,000 quilts to children.
“We have volunteers all the way from Alaska to Maine,” Simms said. “It has just taken on a life of its own.“
Simms said the process of creating a quilt — everything from treating and cutting the fabric to printing the photos — is labor intensive.
“It can take 10 to 12 weeks to process the request,” she said.
Volunteer quilter Gisele Schneider, who has been involved with Operation Kid Comfort for two years, laughed as she recalled being frightened during thunderstorms as a child, especially while her Marine father was deployed. She said she would have appreciated having one of the quilts she now produces when she was younger.
“I remember being one of those children,” she said. “I would have loved a quilt.“