Quilter gives more than 400 to Butler Area elementary schools
BUTLER TWP — Staff members at Salvation Army stores know her as “the sheet lady,” because she regularly buys quilt materials there in bulk, but elementary school students in Butler Area School District will know her as Mrs. Lewis.
Judy Lewis, of Espyville in Crawford County, donated more than 400 quilts to the Golden Tornado Scholastic Foundation, and the organization will distribute them to the 401 children enrolled in the Kids’ Weekend Backpack Program this week.
It took more than a year for Lewis to create the handmade quilts, but Lewis worked relatively quickly, usually churning out one quilt per day. A former resident of Cranberry Township, Lewis said she heard about the Kids’ Weekend Backpack Program from a friend, and wanted to contribute something to the children receiving food for the weekends.
“I started making quilts for the family and I enjoyed it; I thought about making them for others who really need them,” she said. “They are all different so that anybody who gets one can feel like they were made just for them.”
Audray Muscatello Yost, organizer of the Kids’ Weekend Backpack Program, said Lewis told her about her project more than a year ago. The quilts would come in about 20 at a time, delivered by Lewis’ friend, Jodie Dunn.
On Tuesday, Oct. 29, volunteers who put the backpacks together placed the quilts in the 401 bags for the students, which will be given discreetly to Kids’ Weekend Backpack Program recipients on Friday by teachers at the elementary schools.
“Everyone is going home with a homemade quilt of their own,” Muscatello Yost said.
The Kids’ Weekend Backpack Program serves children in kindergarten through fifth grade in the district’s seven elementary schools. Each student participating in the program discreetly receives a plastic bag each Friday packed with child-friendly, single-serving snacks and easily prepared meals in their backpack.
While it took years to make enough quilts to supply to all the children part of the Kids’ Weekend Backpack Program, Lewis said she will have to start soon to make enough for the next year’s program recipients. Lewis also donates quilts to shelters and organizations as far north as Erie, but the undertaking for Butler Area School District was a big, but rewarding, challenge.
“Audray said I can keep on going, so in another two years maybe I can turn another 400 in,” Lewis said. “I donate them, I don't want anything back.”
