We Still Need 4 Quilts For Colorado Dispatchers...Completed!

As Christmas approaches I would like to ask those of you who may have large quilt stashes to pray about reaching into those and choosing perhaps your very favorite that you do not use and think about giving it to one of the 4 dispatchers that are still trying to move forward with their lives after the Colorado floods.

Unlike many of us, dispatchers go to work during these disasters, they put their own lives on the back burner, they place their children with friends or family members and they go to work, because it is what they do and who they are.

Their jobs matter and trust me when I say few can do those jobs and even fewer still want to do those jobs. I have taken calls from spouses who just woke up to find the body of their lifeless spouse after 50 years of marriage, from spouses who came home to find their spouse had committed suicide, parents whose babies passed from SIDS, people who just witnessed a horrible accident and cannot do anything to help.

I have heard the desperation in a police officers voice when they realize what they are doing will not help and yet, they must try.  I have talked people out of killing themselves and talked to scared children whose parents were beating each other up.

I went to work everyday, I loved my job and yet, it took a toll on me in ways I didn't realize until now. It took my hearing, it took my physical health and at times my mental health.

We do it because we are good at it, because we know not everyone can do it and we do it many times without thanks, without days off after a major incident, we do it because we know we are the life line between life and death many times.

Many of you have never had to call 911, never experienced a disaster or known anyone else who has. But if you ever do, you will be glad that dispatcher was there calm and reassuring and then only then will you realize how much a quilt means to them as they meant to you.

I know quilters that have closets, cabinets and storage areas full of beautiful award winning quilts and they are just sitting on a shelf somewhere. When I ask about them, I hear the same thing most of the time, 'I spent to much time working on this to just give it away to a stranger.'

How would you feel if one day you needed a dispatcher and they said, 'I spend to much time helping strangers with things like this to help you right now, good-bye?'  Of course that would never ever happen, but how would you feel if you could help someone and you didn't?

Christmas is a time of year that is stressful for many of us and now imagine that stress compounded because your home couldn't be lived in due to flooding. The greatest gift these dispatchers receive sometimes are a quilt from a complete stranger.

Maybe not your favorite quilt, but a quilt you feel would make someone happy.  If you go to the page with our needs, you will see 4 names of dispatchers in need. Please consider making or donating a quilt to one of these 4.

Blessings to you all and thank you for making 2013 a year to remember!