Last Thursday, Give Me a Chance, Inc. held its first ever Hugs and Stitches Quilt-a-Long where several people were invited to the nonprofit’s Ogden offices to make quilts for youths going into foster care.

Kellie Smith, director of quilting and sewing at Give Me a Chance, Inc., told the Standard-Examiner that Give Me a Chance is a nonprofit organization that helps disadvantaged mothers, women and youth.

“I teach quilting and sewing,” she said. “I have ladies come on Tuesdays to do quilting and we do a lot of charity work as well with our quilt work.”

She said there are several classes available at the organization from quilting to ESL.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“Our goal is to try to get the ladies self-sufficient and to be able to take what they’re learning to go out and find a job or help their families in some way with what they learn here,” she said.

Smith said it was these quilting and sewing classes that inspired her to come up with a new event — the Hugs and Stitches Quilt-a-Long.

“I posted on Facebook asking ladies if they wanted to come and help us and that we are going to be making quilt s for Northern Utah Foster Care,” she said. “About every few months, I get somebody contacting me to ask if we have any quilts to donate to kids that are going into the foster care system. It gives them something that they can call theirs, wrap up in and just feel comfort knowing that they are loved and they are in a safe place.”

She said. that, when asked in the past, she’d usually just take quilts from her own stash of quilts to donate.

“It was just a need that I saw,” she said. “I’m running out of large, twin-sized quilts for beds,” she said. “I decided it might be a good idea to try and get some community members to come in and help make some fast and easy quilts that we can have ready for when we get the call.”

Photo supplied, Kellie Smith

On Thursday, more than 15 people showed up to help craft 16 quilts throughout the day.

Smith said she’s hoping to make the Hugs and Stitches Quilt-a-Long a quarterly thing if there’s interest in participation and if it’s feasible. She said they would attempt to choose a different organization each time to receive the quilts that are made.

In the meantime, she said she was happy to see so many people pitching in for the first quilt-a-long.

“I’m excited that I’ve had a good response since this is a first-time thing,” she said.