Sewing With Nancy

I was surprised to learn that quilts can be part of the foundation for a hospital. Not literally but through the making and donating of quilts a humanitarian aid hospital is being built in Tanzania. Please welcome Kate Robbins who is our guest. She heads up the program Comfort Quilts Project which is part of Roads to Life Tanzania. Kate, welcome to Sewing With Nancy. Thank you, Nancy, I'm glad to be here. When I heard about your project making a quilt block, sending it to your organization making a donation and what it does I was so impressed. Give our viewers an overview of Roads to Life Tanzania. Thank you. Roads to Life Tanzania has been doing development work in Tanzania just south of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania near a village called Nkololo for nearly 50 years. They've done a lot of things built roads, educated kids done other agriculture projects. And now they are building a hospital. We were trying to think of a way to help them do that. We've come up with a project called Comfort Quilts and we're having quilt blocks. Like a block builds a building we're having a quilt block help build this building. We're asking the quilting community to donate a 12" block in any kind of pattern. We just ask, no embellishments. Anything that could be used in a hospital. So it'd be like a 12-1/2" square so it'd a 12" finished block. Right. And those will then be made into quilts that will be used in the hospital. I have a group of volunteers who are going to help put them together. We have one of those with us today. We do, we do. The project started, oh, not quite a year ago and we've had quite a few blocks come in as well as donations. The donations will help us finish building the hospital and equipping it. And the quilts, like I said, will be used by the people who are patients at the hospital. Now sometimes when you're at consumer shows or events you give away a little square of African fabric so that they remember to make a block. Some of those fabrics squares have been incorporated in the blocks. They have, which was kind of a surprise to us but it's real fun to see that. I think the people in Africa when their quilts come back and see some of their fabric they might be surprised. This is a good example of that. These corner squares here in this particular block are from a sample that we did give out at a quilt show just to show the show-goers about African fabrics and the like. It was fun to see how someone used it. Now, in Tanzania the hospital is so needed. Explain the number of beds right now that are in the hospital and why you're building another one. Well, back in 1983 they started with a very small healthcare center kind of a drug store, if you will. Then it went to a maternity ward and then a healthcare facility. The current facility has 32 beds but the daily occupancy is over 50, Nancy. That means two people per bed on most days. Two sick people per bed. Yeah, yeah. As Americans, we don't even like the thought of sharing a room much less a bed with someone. As you can see, the need is very great there. We're hoping this facility will house at least 100 beds as well as it will have a surgical unit which we haven't had in the past. They have a blood lab that they can use for more procedures than they've been able to do. So it will really be a great facility for the people of the area. You have a great quote on your brochure. Why don't you read that to our viewers because it ties in building humanitarian need as well as quilts. Thank you, it does. It's called the Comfort Quilt Project and we say that it is "Binding the fabric of generosity and talent to give relief and comfort to those in need." And that is truly what this project is about. It's comforting to see that-- We have the cute picture of these little kids and one of the quilts that you've donated. Being, obviously, not used in the hospital, but used there. We can use quilts all over the world but this is your little corner of the world that you're working with. Every year you're just going to be sending more quilts to that area. They will most certainly be used and much needed there. It's a big undertaking to equip the hospital. This is just one way that we can tie the people here the very generous quilting community to help those that are really in need in Africa. You're over halfway there of the $9 million project. Congratulations. We're working on it. The Comfort Quilt Project is one part of that fundraising effort and so far we've been pretty successful. We hope that this program might help us bring in more. Well, Kate, thank you for joining us. I'm sure you'll get some quilt blocks and donations from our viewers. We look forward to that. Thank you for the opportunity, Nancy. You're welcome. I hope you've been enjoying this series that we've been working with. We'll be back next time on Sewing with Nancy for some more sewing, quilting and embroidery ideas. If you'd like to re-watch this program or any of the most recent Sewing With Nancy programs you can go to nancyzieman.com. Click on videos, as well as the Nancy's Corner videos and you'll be able to see the programs at you convenience. Join us on Facebook, on our blog on twitter and Pintrest. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now.