How the Gaston ECA has doubled efficiency to donate quilts and the like
Last year, 50 volunteers working with the Gaston County Extension and Community Association contributed 9,896 hours of their time to make quilted items for the community.
The dollar value of the time worked by volunteers and the physical items created comes out to a total of $409,552 going into the community.
According to the ECA Liaison and Volunteer Coordinator Kayla Adams, the group expects to be able to create more items and faster than ever before in the coming year thanks to a $15,000 donation.
Last year, the ECA received a grant from the Gaston Community Foundation, the Carrie E. and Lena V. Foundation, the Charles and Irene Nanney Foundation, and the North Carolina State Extension Innovation Grants organization.
The funding allowed the ECA to purchase a digital long-arm quilting machine that speeds up the process of creating items exponentially.
According to Adams, until they got the new machine last July, all of the sewing and quilting was done by hand on traditional sewing machines.
With the new machine, volunteers sew together the patches for a quilt on their traditional machines, and then layer the pattern with blanket filler and a bottom layer before laying it on the long-arm device.
Once it is on the new machine, quilters can either use the handles to manually move the needle or they can digitally set the machine to create a specific pattern, and it will complete the bulk sewing of the item.
When the piece is done on the long-arm, volunteers remove it from the machine, close the edges of the item on a standard sewing machine and sit the item aside to be donated.
A few examples of community partners that benefit from these donations include the CaroMont Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the Gaston County Cold Weather Shelter and the Boys and Girls Home of Lake Waccamaw.
The ECA donates baby quilts to CaroMont’s NICU and quilted pillowcases to the cold weather shelter and Boys and Girls Home, among other projects.
Every item is crafted with donated fabric and materials from smoke-free homes, Adams said.
Moving into the new year, the ECA is in the beginning stages of a program to make quilts for veterans and is seeking both donations and volunteers.
Adams said the ECA also offers sewing and other craft classes for all levels at their home-base, Lucille Tatum Homemaker’s Center, on a regular basis. Community members that are interested in taking a class or learning more about the ECA can find their website by visiting gogastonnc.org/places/lucile-tatum-center.
Anybody 18-years-old or older with an interest in learning is welcome, Adams said.
This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Gaston ECA doubles efficiency with new quilting machine
