Students sew blankets for soldiers

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Students sew blankets for soldiers

by Dennis Carter | Staff Writer

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Raphael Talisman⁄The Gazette

Parkdale High School freshman Mirial Ariaga, 14, of Landover Hills, is one of 92 students who made 20 blankets for U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq.

The process was frustrating at times, students said, but every stitch was worth it.

More than 90 students at Parkdale High School in Riverdale worked for two months in the school’s advanced sewing class to make blankets for U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq. In groups of five, Parkdale students from every class stitched patches and ribbons, lacing personal messages into every blanket. The hand-and-machine-sewed blankets were loaded and shipped off to Iraq last week.

Susan Baudoin, the advanced sewing instructor at Parkdale, said when she introduced the idea to her students in early February, she had no idea what to expect.

‘‘I wasn’t sure what their reaction would be,” she said, ‘‘but the messages they attached showed a depth of feeling that was remarkable. Especially for teenagers, who as a group don’t think about others all that much. ... They just said, ‘Let’s go for it.’”

They decorated the red and blue blankets with phrases like ‘‘Come home safely,” ‘‘We are praying for you” and many messages thanking military for their service in the four-year-old war.

Baudoin’s students joined the Blankets of Hope program orchestrated by Soldiers’ Angels, a nationwide nonprofit organization started in June 2003 that oversees volunteer donations to U.S. military serving overseas.

The blankets will be an essential part of first response backpacks – complete with a host of personal items for injured soldiers transported to a hospital without their personal belongings.

As junior Jordan Smith examined the personalized patch on his group’s fleece blanket, he hoped the tedious work would serve a soldier well.

‘‘We want to make them feel good about what they’re doing in Iraq,” said Smith, 17. ‘‘We just tried to put our hearts into it ... and hopefully lighten their spirits over there.”

As much as soldiers hear that thoughts and prayers are with them, Smith said the blankets speak louder than words.

‘‘They’ll get [the blankets] and know people are thinking about them,” he said. ‘‘They’re not just over there and everybody forgot about them.”

Tania Stewart, a sophomore at Parkdale, said once the program was described, it didn’t take long to sway her.

‘‘I wasn’t that interested at first, but [Baudoin] started talking about the injured soldiers, and that really changed my mind,” said Stewart, 15, whose cousin recently came back from a tour of duty in Iraq. ‘‘We were all really happy with the finished product.”

Parkdale junior Maurice Williams said piecing the blankets together – however trying the process – gave students a chance to show their admiration for soldiers in Iraq’s ongoing conflict.

‘‘It was a lot of hard work,” said Williams, holding the blanket for classmates to see, ‘‘but this project gave us all a chance to show we actually care.”

E-mail Dennis Carter at dcarter@gazette.net.