Hearts And Hands

Hearts and Hands is the annual community service project sponsored by the Billings and Billings East Stakes which took place on Friday and Saturday. There are 38 organizations who receive various donations, ranging from quilts to food to baby layettes to school supplies. All donations are used locally. Below is a picture of the finished products, ready to be picked up by the organizations.

Long shot of the distribution tables.

Last year we added a used clothing drive for women. Donated clothes are checked for stains, then sorted by type (dress, pants, shirts, shoes, purses) and sized and hung for sisters to sort through. Anyone can take anything and any amount of clothing they want. Some clothes are pulled for Billings "Dress for Success"--a charity that gives professional-type clothing to needy women for use in interviews or jobs. Leftovers are picked up by Salvation Army.


Below is a picture of the stage where elementary school kits were assembled. These kits include a new backpack, new pencils, markers, glue sticks, notebooks, markers, crayons, and scissors. If we have more supplies then requested by local charities, we donate them to School District 2.


These are finished backpacks in the teen room. They have school supplies and hygiene items. They are intended for charities that service homeless or runaway kids. We don't always meet the requests made by the charities we work with, but we do the best we can, and the charities are delighted to get our donations. It's heartbreaking to see the amount requested each year and know there are that many needy kids and teens in our community.

Below are sisters assembling teen kids

Below, a picture of the 100+ clothing protectors for nursing homes.

A shot of the gym where quilts were being tied. We try to involve other churches, and one really wonderful church participates every year, including their pastor and wife, teenage sons and their friends.

We make baby, twin, and lap size quilts. Most of the quilts were finished before the service days this year, freeing up valuable time. For the first time in many years we finished every single quilt. Last year we sent home 40 quilts to be finished and donated later.

Each assembly area had a sign that listed what was to go into each kit. Donated items were separated into piles and sisters walked around the tables, adding one of each item on the list to their bag.

Piles in the layette room:
toys

diapers

clothing

receiving blankets and burp rags

Other projects that I didn't get pictures of were the friendship bags---basically a bag of food for people who are in need of their next meal, the hygiene kits for Women's shelter, Salvation Army, and Family Services, the knitted caps for cancer victims, and the clothing and book donations for Head Start, and the blood donation area. We provide the biggest blood donation days for the local blood bank.

I am always so amazed at the generosity of people in our community. There were many pieced and hand or machine quilted quilts. At a time when many people are in need themselves, there were so many donations.