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