Smith: 100 'security blankets' go to kids needing just such a thing

What’s a quilt but a patchwork of love and comfort? It’s also a consummate gift for a child in distress.

Meg Easter-Dawson of the Valley of the Moon Children’s Home visited a gathering of the Santa Rosa Quilt Guild on Thursday to accept a quite stunning expression of caring - 100 handmade quilts.

As has been the tradition for decades, one will go to each child who enters the home, a sanctuary for abused and neglected youngsters.

Before Easter-Dawson packed the colorful, imaginative and lovingly stitched quilts into her car, guild members showed them off in a parade around the periphery of a meeting room at the Scottish Rite Temple Center in Rincon Valley.

Easter-Dawson said the quilts are treasured by the children.

“These quilts become security blankets,” she said. “We hear story after story of kids who carry them into adulthood.”

Members of the nearly 40-year-old guild donate quilts also to many others who benefit from the warmth and kindness. Soon the quilts they’ve given away will number 19,000.