Spring SEW DAY is Thursday, May 18, from 10-3 pm at the Towanda Methodist Church on Main St in Towanda. The parking lot and entrance are located behind the Church and can be accessed by Jefferson St, either from N. Main St or the Merrill Parkway.

Bring a machine, a cutter, or just yourself and join us in prepping quilts for the June 10 Bradford and Sullivan Counties Veterans Appreciation Picnic at Mountaineer Park in Monroeton. At the meeting, we will also be sewing blocks and tops. We look forward to seeing everyone for a day of fun, good company, and working to fulfill our mission of covering our vets with healing Quilts of Valor.

ALSO. If you are able to join us on June 10 for the awarding of the quilts at the picnic in Monroeton, we find the more hands we have, the smoother the awarding goes. We arrive around 12: 30- 12:45 and award the quilts at 1:00 pm. The ceremony takes about 20 minutes. If you have never awarded a QOV and can attend, then you will understand how meaningful and rewarding the ceremony is. Hope to see as many of you as can attend.

Despite the freezing temperatures, twelve dedicated BCQOV members came out to the Methodist Church in Towanda bright and early on Feb 4. 

The game plan was to do a block party to participate in the National QOVF’s annual SEW  DAY.  The star of the party was the QOVF national block drive’s choice, titled the split star. The block was designed by Kim DiJoseph and is not only beautiful and versatile but is easy to piece. 

Lou Taft cut blocks and put them into kits.  Quilters also made disappearing 9 patch blocks and Oh my stars blocks, and keyhole blocks from pre- cut kits done by Joan Woloshyn and Carol Ullo.  

“I love the split star,” commented Taft, “ because it is beautiful and there are so many different ways to arrange it”. Ullo was contacted by Christine Davis, Home Economics teacher at Harlan Rowe Middle School in Athens. Her students would like to participate in making Split Stars to make a QOV. She stopped by the Sew Day to pick up the block kits for her students and to watch while Sally Davis and Tina Champluvier demonstrated how to make the block. 

The day went quickly and at the end of the day, there were almost enough blocks for 4 quilt tops.  Members shared food and friendship and headed back out into the cold.

Click on any photo to view all as a slide show.

Members of the Friendship Quilters met on Friday, January 27, at the Riverstone Inn. After regular business was finished,  QOVF chapter members outlined plans for the QOVF National Sew Day on Feb 4, 2023.  It will be held at the Towanda Methodist Church on N. Main Street in Towanda.  The parking lot and entrance are located behind the Church and can be accessed by Jefferson St, either from N. Main St or the Merrill Parkway.  It will be held from 10-3 pm this Saturday, Feb 4. 

Volunteers are asked to bring scissors and a cutter.  Several members are already signed up to bring sewing machines. We will be doing blocks, backs, binding, and borders, all of which are badly needed. Attendees should dress warmly due to the cold weather.  Refreshments and goodies will be available to all who come to help. 

Below are photos of the quilted tops that were shown at the meeting. 

On Friday, October 28, at the regular Friendship Quilters meeting at the Riverstone in Towanda, members showed off some gorgeous quilt tops made for QOVF.

Longarm quilters Dawn Z, Sue G and Ruth W took tops back from the sew-in to get quilted this winter.

All this is in preparation for our spring and summer Veterans’ appreciation picnics and any other awards we will do next year.

The good news is that the shelf of finished quilts is slowly getting replenished, so we will be ready for any upcoming awards.

On Friday Oct 7, with arms full of fabrics, machines, and quilting supplies, 15 ladies descended on the North Rome Wesleyan Church to make Quilts of Valor to replenish our shelf. We have only two finished quilts at this time, although there are others in various stages of completion.

This sewing day held the promise of additional tops for us to quilt and prepare to award to local veterans who have been touched by war. And it did not disappoint.

The large gym at North Rome Wesleyan Church was amazing and the ladies got right to work and by the end of the day had completed 5 tops. Several of those in attendance took home precut quilts to finish over the winter.

Anyone who was unable to make the sew day is encouraged to pick up a pre-cut quilt top kit from Patti Shores or Carol Ullo to work on over the winter. Our next planned sew day will be the National QOV Sew Day on the first Saturday in February.

BCQOV is lucky to have such a dedicated group of quilters and we are especially lucky to have local volunteer long armers. Dawn, Ruth, and Carol have recently been joined by Laura and Sue Gore. Sue is starting a long arm business and as she volunteers for us, we urge anyone who needs her personal quilts long arm quilted to contact Sue at Susie Q Quilts suegore3983@gmail.com or 570-250-2800.

Our volunteer piecers, quilters and binders are working, hoping that next year we will be awarding many more Quilts of Valor.  Here are a few that are finished waiting for recipients.

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Dennis Essig of Overton and Jon Livezey received Quilts of Valor on Sunday, July 5, at St Paul’s Church in Overton.

Essig served in the Army in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970 where he received two Purple Hearts, a National Defense medal, Army Commendation medal and Marksmanship medal.

Livezey served in the Army Infantry in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969, earning a National Defense medal, Vietnam Service Medal with three bronze stars, a Republic of Vietnam Campaign medal and Expert Rife medal.

The two quilts were made and quilted by Dawn Zimmerman who with Carol Ullo did the award ceremony.

Hope everyone is doing well. Here is some important information for anyone involved with Quilts of Valor. The National Website says that no awards shall be done until June 1. I did one on May 1 that was done via facetime and it went very smoothly. I mailed the nominator the quilt and supporting documentation. The man’s sister who nominated him, felt he could really use one since he was in a deep depression.

We are told that the next QOV Threads newsletter will say that they are extending the date for award ceremonies until the end of July. That said, they said to use your discretion and be safe. If you feel that there is a service member or veteran who really needs a quilt, it can be done digitally. As we in our counties move into green, I believe that we could do individual award ceremonies wearing masks and omitting the hug.

QOVF has been busy updating their criteria and protocols.

Quilts of Valor^® Foundation
Mission Criteria for ‘Touched By War’

Living Veterans of the Armed Forces of the United States during declared war, conflicts, police actions, peacekeeping missions, counter terrorism operations. This would include, but not necessarily limited to: WWII, Cold War period, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Beirut, Granada, Bosnia, Desert Storm, Desert Shield, Iraq, Afghanistan, anti-terrorism operations, and terrorism attacks against Armed Forces personnel.

Only individuals who have received an Honorable or General Discharge. QOVF does not award QOVs posthumously.

Not eligible for QOV:
a. Firefighters
b. Police Officers/Law Enforcement Officers
c. Civilian Security personnel
d. Family members to include parents, spouse, children, etc. of Armed Forces service members or veterans (living or deceased)
e. Other uniformed services, (e.g., Public Health Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA))
f. Military or Service Animals

Priorities: While there may be general guidance on overall factors in determining priority such as health status or concerns, age, conflicts/wars (WWII veterans/current), ‘need’ for comfort and healing and a combination of factors and circumstances; flexibility and final decision is at the local group level.

Group Award Event: Do not allow large group awards (e.g., groups going on or returning from deployment, etc.); however, allow individual requests to be ‘grouped’ together in smaller numbers (e.g., less than 20) for an award ceremony. This ensures each service member and veteran is recognized individually and then accounted for in the database.

Surprises: Surprise awards are not allowed out of respect for service members and veterans as well as potential risk to them and to QOVF.

• This is out of respect for the service members and veterans. We ask the families to understand that the award of a QOV is a partnership between the nominator, the nominated and QOV volunteers/members. This limitation is designed to protect the service member or veteran from any trigger of emotional trauma, such as reminders of the past.
• It is also designed to protect the QOVF volunteers/members from placing a service member of veteran under emotional duress, stress or pressure.

Do Not Investigate

No person or group has the permission of the QOVF Board or Executive Director to investigate a service member or veteran. The nominator should know the service member or veteran or should talk to the family to get information. The new nomination form which will be on the QOVF website will be modified to reflect this. We will then be modifying our nomination to match the one of the national website.

There will be more information to follow as soon as it become available on QOVF.org.

In the meantime, I thank those of you who are making and quilting tops. Please contact me if you have any questions or have tops to be quilted.

Stay safe,

Carol Ullo

BCQOF group leader

Vietnam Veteran Duane Carrington received a Quilt of Valor on Sunday, March 22 at his home.  Carrington Served as Crew Chief on a helicopter in Vietnam from July 1965 to July 1967.  During that time, he received 16-17 Oak Cluster medals, the Army Commendation Medal and special recognition for capturing 22 Vietcong.  Carrington’s family was present at the awarding which was done by Faye Lubold and Carol Ullo, Quilt of Valor representatives.

Saturday March 14, Chief Warrant Officer Heath Stone received a Quilt of Valor.  Stone, who has served 17 years in the army, has been stationed in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Poland, Uganda, South Sudan, and Central African Republic.  He will be redeploying to Afghanistan in two weeks.  A highly decorated soldier, Stone is also a loving husband and father of 2.

About the quilt he said, Thank you so much for the great ceremony yesterday and the quilt. We put the quilt to good use last night for movie time! May God bless all the recipients, volunteers and their families of the “Quilts of Valor” organization.