Newsletter

Edition 1 – February 2026 Blankets Donated 33,820

Hugs & Snuggles Newsletter

Please see our website to view all pictures.

Blankets: In January 263 blankets were made and donated by blanketeers and we delivered 122 to children in need at Upstate Pediatric and Adolescent Center, Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Nappi Wellness Center,

Blanket sizes

Approximate Sizes

Baby / Toddler 36x36, 36x40

Grade School 40x45

Teen 45x50, 50x60 or bigger.

WE NEED : We can use teen boy and girl and grade school boy.

Note from Karen

Hi Everyone:

It is a new year so let us review. Please do not leave pins in your blankets, just fold a note in your blanket or use tape. If you use Downy unstoppables or Tide when washing – please don’t wash your blankets. The scent of those things can trigger horrendous asthma attacks. Please no smoking while working on blankets and do not let your pets use the blankets as a bed before donating them. If you have trouble binding your blankets, please feel free to reach out to me. We can have a meeting where we help to teach binding or we can have another blanketeer finish your blanket. If you do not include a note in your blanket bag of your name and contact information I will not know you made the blankets. If you have been donating to me for a while, just put your name, unless your contact information has changed. I have a lot of people thinking that just because we meet in person at a pick-up site, that I will remember which bag is yours. (HA,HA). You people have more faith in me than I do. I had over 221 blankets on my porch this month. That doesn’t include what one of the volunteers had at her house. By the time I reached the bottom of the pile I did not know my own name. So please put names in the bags. Thank you.

I know I am one of the most hated women in Syracuse right now, but I have been loving the snow and cold. Most of my friends see me and say “Happy Yet?” almost. I know it’s strange to love this weather. I just hate heat. I can put more on to stay warm. I can only take so much off to cool down, and not get arrested. My Mom loved snow. Neighbors out shoveling would often ask her, “Did you ask for this snow Peg?’ Yup, she did. She was happiest looking out the window watching the really big snowflakes fall. I am happy to carry on the tradition. For those not happy, by the end of this month it will start at least staying above 25-30 degrees. So, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Now for our really big news. They didn’t tell me I had to keep it a secret, so I am spilling the beans. April 17th, Project Linus Onondaga Co NY will receive the Bill Towsley Award at the McMahon Ryan Advocacy Pinwheel Ball. It is a huge honor and given to those who consistently help McMahon Ryan in their mission to help children of abuse. We have over the last 8 years been their biggest donor of blankets. Each child receives a Teddy Bear and a Blanket to help them feel comfortable and relaxed enough to talk about things no child should ever have to discuss. I knew about McMahon Ryan, before I knew about Project Linus. When I was working, I had dealings with them, and when I took over the chapter, I used to deliver blankets to them while on Duty. What they do to help children of abuse is so very important, and I am so happy that we can offer comfort to those children just by giving them a blanket. So, I will do my best to represent all of you and our chapter at the upcoming event. They said I do not have to give a speech. YAY!!!! I will post pictures after on our website, so you can all see me in black tie event dress. It doesn’t happen often.

You can read more about the event at the link below.

The Pinwheel Ball | McMahon Ryan

Reading back over the last 3 paragraphs, I have noticed I use so quite a bit. Time to get out the thesaurus and look for other words, Therefore, Alas, Now. LOL. Yes, I really do have better things to do.

Events:

Manlius Library – blanket top day

Our next Sew day is March 7th 1-4pm at the Manlius library. The library has 5 machines for use (please sign up with them), I have 5 machines (1 spoken for usually). You can always bring your own. I provide kits already cut. I am concentrating on teen boy kits for the March sewing day.

National Blanket Day

February 21st, is National Make a Blanket Day. Our chapter has no formal blanket day scheduled. We do the sewing days at Manlius every other month and that has been generating great blanket tops to help us bridge our gaps in numbers coming in and numbers going out. February is a hard month to plan a blanket making day when you live next door to Lake Ontario. Like the last couple of snow events last month, most public buildings were shut down. We would love to see you at one of our sewing day. You don’t have to sew, bring your crochet/knit and just sit and get in on the gab session. It’s lots of fun.

Blanket Pick Ups: I should be driving the Silver Ford Escape. But just incase the other vehicle is a gold Chevy Equinox.

If you know you cannot be there close to the hour and will be closer to the half hour or 45 minutes – please let me know. If you are at an appointment I will gladly wait. But if I sit there for a half hour and no one shows, I will be leaving.

February Pick-ups:

Fayetteville – Joann’s parking lot – Wednesday February18th 11am

Clay – Joann’s parking lot - Friday February 20th 11am

Preble – Kaleidoscope Quilts – Thursday February 26th 1pm

Baldwinsville – in Village lot behind the library – Friday February 27th 11am

March Pick-ups:

Fayetteville – Joann’s parking lot – Wednesday March 18th 11am

Preble – Kaleidoscope Quilts – Thursday March 19th - 1pm

Baldwinsville – in Village lot behind the library – Friday March 20th 11am

Clay – Joann’s parking lot - Friday March 27th 11am

BOM – Blanket of the Month - please see our website for pictures under Blanket of the Month page, under the Newsletter tab

With the over 200 blankets on my porch in a huge pile, I decided to make life easy and not do BOM pictures. One of my assistants submitted pictures from her pickups. We will try and get back to our regularly scheduled picture taking this month.

Cheryl Grom – Shades of purple

Beth Sochan – Puppy power

Blanketeers for this month. Thank you to the following Blanketeers for donating blankets .

Anon Bonnie Blake Cindy Crandall Deb Duvall

Yvonne Fenster Gail Keller Elizabeth Neuyen Peg Nodell

Ruth Norton Karen S Karen Schneider Faith Stopyro

Nikhil Suryadevara Kimberly Sweetser Karen Waelder Manlius Sew Group

Cheryl Huffman Merinda Brown Beth Sochan Cheryl Grom

Julie Litteer

Quilt tops, Fleece, Material, Hats, Mittens, Scarf …etc Thank you for quilt tops, pillow cases, fleece, material, hats, mittens ….etc

Jean Lemanczyk Carol Kolodziejski Rosalyn Carroll Faith Stopyro

Our drop off sites: Please check with our drop off sites for current hours of operation. All of our sites are wonderfully supportive of us and we thank them for their support.

When dropping off blankets please put them in a plastic bag with Project Linus on the outside and a note inside with your name.

Baldwinsville Library – 33 E Genesee St, Baldwinsville

Manlius Library – 1 Arkie Albanese Ave , Manlius

Calico Gals – 3906 New Court Ave – Syracuse

Sew What? CNY – 25 Seminary St, Auburn.

Oliver's Originals – 8188 Cazenovia Rd Manlius

Kaleidoscope of Quilts – 6271 Little York Lake Rd – Little York(Cortland County)

The Quilt Shop – 1625 State St Watertown,

Karen Lathrop – 245 Martin St – Syracuse NY

Sponsors:

I want to thank our great sponsors whose dollars help me to buy fabric, muslin, markers and yarn.

Stewarts Dairies

Luv Handlz Frozen Yogurt – James St

For more information on Project Linus contact:

Karen Monnet Lathrop

Project Linus Coordinator

Syracuse / Onondaga/ Oswego County

315-455-2518

kikiquilts564@yahoo.com

or visit our website at http://kikiquilts564.wix.com/projectlinusonondaga

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December 2025 Blankets Donated 33,820

Hugs & Snuggles Newsletter

Please see our website to view all pictures.

Project Linus Onondaga County NY

Blankets: In November 243 blankets were donated by blanketeers and we delivered 116 to children in need at Upstate Pediatric and Adolescent Center, Sleep in Heavenly Peace, First Baptist Church of Memphis, Center for Internation Health.

In December 176 blankets came in we gave 500 blankets to children in need at Access of CNY, CIH, Cortland County Child Advocacy, Eastern Farm Workers of CNY, McMahon Ryan Child Advocacy Center, Mothers and Children in Crisis, Oswego City School District, Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Tully Rotary, Upstate Pediatric and Adolescent Center.

Which means for the 4th quarter of 2025 blanketeers made 770 blankets and we donated 816 to children in need.

Meaning for 2025, 2,254 blankets came into the chapter and we delivered 2,360 to agencies helping children in need.

We also gave out 214 hats, mitten, scarfs, and pillowcases in the months of November and December, trying to help the children in our community stay warm.

Blanket sizes

Approximate Sizes

Baby / Toddler 36x36, 36x40

Grade School 40x45

Teen 45x50, 50x60 or bigger.

WE NEED : We can use everything. Absolutely everything, our shed is quite empty.

Note from Karen

Hi Everyone:

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. It took until the Thursday before Christmas to get everything delivered to all the agencies we help in December. So this week I am enjoying a well deserved downtime. I have been reading some books, doing some sewing of other projects and of course labeling some blankets that came in, in December. But all at a much slower pace than normal. I usually need the 2 week break between Christmas and when I start doing pick-ups to just relax and catch my breath. I do the newsletter, I fill out grant paperwork for fund raising and I do the yearly paperwork I have to do to keep us an active chapter. But other than that I try and get a little rest before I start all over again. As usual in December I was questioning my sanity. However, I got it all delivered, all picked-up and I even got all my gifts wrapped to give out. That’s the hard one for me. I hate wrapping presents. I am why they invented gift bags. But I love shopping my current catalog for gift wrap. They make such nice gift wrap.

I am also thinking of the year ahead. I am hoping I personally get to sew more. Along with finding my porch , those are my 2 big New Year’s resolutions. Every year around Christmas I realize they are not going to happen. But I hope. As a chapter we will be doing the Maker Faire in May. The Maker Faire Syracuse is a great interactive experience for kids of all ages. This will be our 5th year. See their website at Home Page - Maker Faire Syracuse.

I am also planning that we will do the State Fair this year. So, I will be prepping muslin fabric and cotton fabric squares to make our Fair coloring block blankets. So later this month I will be doing an inventory of blocks I have to see what I need.

Of course, I will start planning for next December and making sure we have blankets set aside for all the agencies we help during that time of year.

I wish each of you a happy, healthy, safe New Year. See you in 2026.

Events:

Manlius Library – blanket top day

Our next sew day is January 3rd 1-4pm at the Manlius library. The library has 5 machines for use (please sign up with them), I have 5 machines (1 spoken for usually). You can always bring your own. I provide kits already cut. I am hoping in my down time in December to cut lots of ½ square triangles to change things up a bit.

Blanket Pick Ups: I should be driving the Silver Ford Escape. But just incase the other vehicle is a gold Chevy Equinox.

After November pickups – please hold your blankets until January

January Pick-ups:

Clay – Joann’s Parking lot – Friday, January 9th 11am

Fayetteville – Joann’s Parking lot – Tuesday, January 13th 11am

Baldwinsville Library – Wednesday January 14th 11am

Preble – Kaleidoscope Quilts – 6271 Little York Lake Rd – Friday January 16th -11am

BOM – Blanket of the Month - please see our website for pictures under Blanket of the Month page, under the Newsletter tab

Melanie Davis – Super Soft – so cuddly

Wendy Masters – Plane – some little boy is going to love the plane – Green Patch – my picture does not do the colors justice

Debbie Waite – Golden - love the golden color

Beth Sochan – Giraffes - I love giraffes and elephants for babies. SO NEUTRAL – BOTH OF THEM

Virginia Collinson – Polar Bears - love the bears

Cindy Crandall – Manly Blues - I love the blues and whites of this blanket and great teen size.

Blanketeers for this month. Thank you to the following Blanketeers for donating blankets .

Anon Ana Moon Marsh Memorial Fund Virginia Collinson Cindy Crandall

Melanie Davis Carmen Denny Deb DuVaul Karen Eggleston

Cheryl Grom Rebecca Jeffery Gail Keller Julie Litteer

Wendy Masters Beverly Neuman Kelley Neuman Ruth Norton

Oswego County 4H Gail Renninger Karen S Tami Smith

Beth Sochan Faith Stopyro Kimberly Sweetser Candy Thorp

Karen Waelder Debbie Waite