Why 'Wrapped in Hope'?

As I drove my kids to school this morning, I started writing this post in my head--I would use brilliant words to inspire every reader to sign up to be a volunteer quilter for our 'Wrapped in Hope' quilt program. And then I came home- sat down here at my computer and nothing I wrote felt right. I am not sure what to say to convince more people that what we are doing is worthwhile without sounding conniving and desperate-neither of which I consider myself to be. And so the only thing I could come up with is to share with you a few things that the non-incarcerated parents have written to us when signing up their children for this program. Remember that these words are not written to me but to each volunteer quilter-I am only the go between :)

"This is wonderful! I am glad I saw your thread here on Prisontalk. My husband has been in prison 5 years and has 5 more years to go before coming home, and we have 2 daughters ages 8 and 5."

"My son, her father has been in since she was 4 1/2 months old. I am raising her. She will be 18 when he gets out. Anything special means a whole lot to her. We had a box of special things saved for her and it was stolen two years ago from a storage unit we had. Now we are making a new box. This is such a wonderful thing for you to do."

"What you're doing for us families is just remarkable and we are truly blessed to have someone so generous to provide hope for our children. May God bless you and the other volunteers!"

"Your a God send thank you so much for what your doing I think its a great thing. Our daughter will be 16 this year. This has been really hard on her shes a daddys girl & has never been away from him til this happened she misses him hes 5 hrs away we cant afford to visit very much."


I know that many women (and men) reading this are already doing volunteer quilting--there are dozens of great organizations out there who are doing wonderful things. But if you have a few extra days in your year to give to one of these children--look over the list on the sidebar (which is growing daily!) and pick a child and e-mail me at margaretshopechest at yahoo dot com