September 2, 2004 | Read Time: 1 minute
By Caroline Preston
For 76 straight hours last month, more than 100 volunteers took turns cutting, pressing, sandwiching, basting, and sewing quilts to be distributed to families of soldiers slain in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of the quilting marathon, the volunteers in Hudson, Fla., had completed 113 quilts, topping their goal of 100.
The quilting event was the latest effort by Operation Home Front, a project started in May 2003 by Jessica Porter, a 20-year-old who hopes to attend design school next year, and her mother.
Ms. Porter says she and her mother wanted to find a way to honor the memory of those who died in combat. “We had been following the war from the beginning and reading about the soldiers and getting to know what heroes they are,” says Ms. Porter.
Largely because of news-media attention, Operation Home Front has expanded into a nationwide volunteer effort, and the Porters have received quilts from families across the United States and on military bases in Germany and Japan.
Although Ms. Porter at first contributed her own money to the project, donations have now taken care of the expenses. Cranston Fabrics, located in New York, has supplied 600 yards of fabric, while American Professional Quilting Systems, in Carroll, Iowa, lent Ms. Porter a quilting machine and placed advertisements about Operation Home Front in quilting magazines.
The response from families who have received the quilts has been overwhelming, Ms. Porter says. She sends a self-addressed, stamped envelope to each family, many of whom write to express their gratitude for honoring their sons and daughters.
“The thank yous are really what keeps us going,” she says.
Here, volunteers in Clovis, N.M., put the finishing touches on a quilt for Operation Home Front.
