Project Update

Words cannot express the gratitude we feel for your ongoing support of this project. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.

Bethune School of Excellence Graduation

We will be presenting 7 quilts to the Bethune School of Excellence on behalf of City Year and the Class of 2012 during their graduation on Monday,June 11, 2012. We thank Lisa Wilcoxen, Reneau Diallo and Jacquelyn Gipson for making quilts and donating fabric and materials to the cause. I thank Lisa Wilcoxen for doing the quilting and binding for one of the quilts I was working on. We thank Kelsey Krzyton and City Year for providing leadership on the Bethune project. We thank Darren Tillis, a local State Farm Agent, for providing the funding to buy materials to complete this project. Here is a link to pictures of the Bethune project.

 

LEARN Charter School African American History Project

We are working with LEARN Charter School to help the children translate their African American History projects into quilt form. To date, the children have developed quilt blocks and presented them to their parents during a biography fair at the school. We thank Ms. Lucille Tomlinson, a second grade teacher at the school, for her leadership on the project. Here is a link to pictures for the LEARN Charter School
project.

       

After these projects are done, we will be going into an hiatus to devote more time to researching the African American experience in North Lawndale.

North Lawndale African American Heritage Quilting Project Participates in City Year Middle School Service Day at Bethune School of Excellence

The North Lawndale African American Heritage Quilting Project is partnering with City Year to produce 10 quilts using quilt blocks produced by participants in the Bethune School of Excellence's Middle School Service Day. Outlined below is an excerpt from an article that appears on the City Year blog. Last Thursday, the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Impact Fund, a McCormick Foundation Fund Team serving at the Bethune School of Excellence held their annual Middle School Service Day. Each year, the Middle School Service Day is designed to teach middle school students about the value of service to their community and then give them an opportunity to put that knowledge into action. At the Bethune School of Excellence, that meant an afternoon of students connecting with both service, and their African American North Lawndale heritage through the craft of quilting! Visit http://cityyearchicago.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/quilting-their-heritage-monday-montage/ to read the entire article.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityyear/sets/72157629925839957/

LEARN Charter School 2nd Graders to Translate Black History Projects to Quilts

We thank Lucille Morris Tomlinson and her 2nd grade class at LEARN Charter School for a warm welcome on May 10, 2012. Lucille invited Valerie F. Leonard to share information with the children regarding the North Lawndale African American Heritage Quilting Project. In turn, they shared their Black History Month presentations, which included reports and poster boards. After the children shared their presentations they brainstormed ways their presentations could be translated into a quilt for the quilting project. We will meet next week to begin to prepare quilt blocks for the quilt. If you are interested in helping out, please, let me know.

Theodis R. Leonard, Retired Principal of Paderewski School, Has Died

Theodis R. Leonard, a retired educator and community activist, died on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012. Please find below links to his obituary (press release) and pictures that could go into the obituary/program. We will share the program booklet once it is finalized. Theodis R Leonard Obituary-Final Dad's Obit Pics

We're Generating Momentum

We are very excited at the momentum the project is generating. On Friday, March 30, 2012, we will be at the Pathfinders Prevention Education Fund fundraiser, raffling chances to design a quilt to be auctioned off at Pathfinders' next event. On Thursday, April 26, we will be working with City Year to develop a quilt during their Middle School Service Day, in which 7th and graders will work with primary grade students to learn how to serve others. One of the exercises will include the development of a community quilt. On Saturday, May 5, 2012, we will be at the Collins Academy High School Community Resource Fair. We will be one of several vendors and community based organizations sharing educational resources to middle and high school children. We will work with Collins High School and City Year to develop a community quilt.

Rev. JM Stone

Dan Perkins, Gary Keller and Valerie F. Leonard met with Bishop Fitzpatrick and his mother, Clara Fitzpatrick, Ed.D, on March 10, 2012. Bishop Fitzpatrick is the pastor of Stone Temple Baptist Church and the Grandson of the founder, Rev. JM Stone. Stone Temple is on historic Douglas Boulevard, down the street from 3411 West Douglas Boulevard, the former site of Friendship Baptist Church. Both Stone Temple and 3411 West Douglas are former synagogues. We thank Bishop Fitzpatrick and Mrs. Clara Fitzpatrick for sharing this article and photographs. I thank Gary Keller for sharing his photos of the article. This article was written by Mary Denson, the Publisher of Windy City Word.

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Rev. Shelvin Hall's Obituary

We were browsing the internet and stumbled upon Rev. Shelvin Hall's Obituary. Rev. Hall was the pastor of Friendship Baptist Church for 51 years. Friendship Baptist Church was located in North Lawndale in the 1960's, as was one of three churches in Chicago that welcomed Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. This photograph is included for education purposes only, and all rights are reserved by the Chicago Sun-Times.

We've Been Invited to Partner with City Year and Collins Academy High School to Prepare a School Quilt

I am very pleased that our North Lawndale African Heritage Quilting Project has been invited to participate with City Year and the Collins Academy to jointly create a quilt for the school. We will be working with parents and students to develop a one of a kind creation around the theme "Warriors: Past, Present, and Future" to celebrate our past accomplishments and to inspire the next generation. I am totally excited about the possibilities.

Thanks for Coming Out to the Drive-Thru Quilting Event

We thank each of you who was able to attend Saturday's Drive-Thru Quilting event. We thank Mssrs. Ronald Lofton Sr. and Ronald Lofton Jr. for their generous support of the event, including discounted meals for participants. We thank City Year volunteers who helped with the logistics and artistic vision, and got their hands dirty designing quilt blocks. We thank Reneau Diallo, Karen Bailey and Zoe Ann Nance for their leadership.

We displayed our very first quilt, and the quilt in progress prepared by Carey Tercentenary AME Church. We had a great turnout, and participants generated enough quilt blocks to pull together two quilts. We were so impressed by the work of a Viet Nam Vet who participated that we will pull his blocks together to make a separate quilt. We will display quilts from the project at McDonald's and take the show on the road when we get a critical mass of quilts. In the meantime, we will be working with schools and other organizations in the community to assist them in making quilts. If your organization is interested in participating, please contact me at valeriefleonard@msn.com. We are looking forward to strengthening the social fabric of our community.

We thank Paul Norrington and Seth Barnhart,  for sharing their photos. God willing, I will be able to provide you with more pics later this week.

Seth's Pictures

Paul's Pictures

Project Update February 10, 2012

Thanks again for your of the North Lawndale African American Heritage Quilting Project. Here is the latest update.

We Thank McDonald's for Their Commitment to the Project

We thank Mssrs. Ronald Lofton Sr and Ronald Lofton Jr for their generous support of this project. McDonald's will be running flyers with coupons for discounted meals for people who can provide proof of participation. Please find links to preliminary drafts of two flyer concepts. McDonald's will review them and add the coupons to the bottom. In the meantime, please, share these with your networks.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/81120066/Drive-Thru-Quilting-Flyer
http://www.scribd.com/doc/81118652/Drive-Thru-Quilting-Flyer-3

City Year

We thank City Year for partnering with us. They will be working with students at Collins to assist with research and pulling the quilt together.

They will also be reaching out to other AUSL schools in Lawndale, including Manley, Johnson and Chalmers to see if they are interested as well. There is potential for at least 17 young adults from City Year to participate, as well as students and staff from the schools. We will need to meet ahead of the Drive-Thru Quilting day to plan logistics and get a head start on productivity for the day. If you are interested in participating in that meeting let me know.

If you don't have time to help us plan, we welcome your participation. Feel free to stop by McDonald's on February 25, 2012, any time between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm. You can bring your own fabric, or use ours. We will help you develop a quilt block using traditional patterns, pictures, poems, your favorite Bible verse, description of block club traditions, etc. The goal of the project is to use quilting to document the
African American experience in North Lawndale. No experience needed.

Drive-Thru Quilting: Fast Food, Quilting to Go for Busy People

Drive-Thru Quilting Flyer