Illinois Valley Quilts of Valor honors veterans with milestone award

Local chapter part of 300,000th quilt award

Illinois Valley Quilts of Valor honored 5 local veterans with an honorary 300,000th Quilt Award.

The Chapter presented quilts to Joshua Lane, US Army; Eugene Barton, US Army; Dale Rogers, US Marine Corps; Don Wilson, US Navy; and one anonymous recipient, US Army on Sunday, June 12.

These honorary quilts celebrate the milestone of 300,000th Quilts of Valor, the total number of quilts made and awarded by Quilts of Valor Foundation (QOVF) groups and members to Veterans and Service Members touched by war, Illinois Valley chapter group leader Terry Johnson said.

Members across the U.S. have awarded 300,000 quilts total since the foundation was started in 2003. QOVF awarded the 300,000th quilt in early April 2022.

To celebrate this milestone, QOVF Groups have been encouraged to award an honorary 300,000 quilt in their community.

Illinois Valley Quilts of Valor in Princeton, and surrounding counties’ local group have chosen these five men to receive these honorary quilts, Johnson said. These men were nominated by Linda Moore who attends church with them at the Cornell Baptist Church, where the quilts were awarded after church service.

Illinois Valley Quilts of Valor is one of over 600 QOVF groups and quilt stores that create and award quilts to Veterans touched by war. QOVF’s mission is to cover Service Members and Veterans touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor.

“These quilts are awarded during ceremonies where veterans are honored for their service,” Johnson said. “QOVF has almost 10,000 members who make and award over 30,000 quilts a year.”

QOVF was founded in 2003 by Catherine Roberts, who had a dream where a soldier who was distressed was comforted by a quilt.

This dream was the inspiration and basis for a Quilt of Valor. Roberts began a grassroots effort enlisting volunteers to create and award Quilts of Valor that has now grown into a national movement today.

More information about QOVF can be found at https://www.qovf.org. Illinois Valley Quilts of Valor was started in April 2017 and has been making and awarding quilts to local Veterans since.

The group invites any interested volunteers that would like to help make quilts, coordinate award ceremonies or donate to the group to contact Johnson at (815)-866-3534.