This past summer, the Evansville Arts Coalition (EAC) received a grant of $740 from First Security Bank of Evansville for a 2007 children's arts program called "Helping Hands - Caring Hands."
The goal of the program was to give students the opportunity to create something for someone else for the purpose of "sharing" during the holiday season and beyond.
The grant funds were used to purchase a rotary cutter, scissor, cutting pad and $700 worth of fleece fabric with which to make blankets.
JoAnn's Fabric of Alexandria offered the material to the group at a 10 percent discount and spent several hours cutting the yards of fleece into one-and-one-half yard pieces.
Several EAC adult volunteers spent the summer matching solid-colored fleeces with patterned fleeces for each blanket, and then cutting strips on the edges of each blanket.
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On November 12, kindergarten through 7th grade Evansville students and their teachers gathered at the school and spent the entire day creating the knotted blankets.
A total of 60 blankets were made ranging from infant to adult sizes.
In early December, every one of the blankets was donated, with the majority of them going to the Douglas County Hospital's emergency room and the new oncology (cancer) wing for patients using those facilities.
The remainder of the infant blankets were donated for use by clients of Douglas County Public Health and Someplace Safe, both with offices in Alexandria.
