Quilting for a cause

— Photo from Ron Ginsberg

Next stop, New Hampshire: The Train Station Quilters, an Altamont group, recently quilted a dozen covers for isolettes, formerly called incubators, that will be used to block out noise and light for babies born with an addiction, at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center.

ALTAMONT — The Train Station Quilters do many service projects.

The quilters had just finished 21 pediatric quilts for the Center For Donation and Transplant, at Albany Medical Center. “For children who are dying, they are covered with one of our quilts,” said Ruth Dickinson, a Train Station Quilter. “Then, after the process, the parents take the quilt home with them.”

The group was going to take a break, when Dickison received a call from New Hampshire.

“My partner’s granddaughter had been in Altamont and she heard what we did, and she went home to Nashua and told her mother, who was a nurse in the NICU [neonatal intensive care unit],” at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, in Nashua, said Dickinson.

The quilts will be used as covers for the isolettes, formerly called incubators, of babies who are born with an addiction to alcohol or drugs — opioids, in particular. The quilts, Dickinson said, will block out noise and light.

Twelve quilts were mailed out on Wednesday, Dickinson said, another five are being finished.

“That’s one of the reasons I wanted you to know,” Dickinson said of the quilts being mailed to New Hampshire, “because you [The Enterprise] have been doing some articles on that [opioids], and, I don’t know how many people know that babies are born with this [addiction] — it’s such a tragedy.”

A number of the quilts that were sent to New Hampshire are stitched with an added remembrance, Dickinson said.

“Some of the quilts that we’re mailing out have on the back of them, ‘In Memory of Judy Newcomb,’” Dickinson said. “She was a founder of our group and she passed away this year; we inherited all her fabric. So many of the quilts are made from fabric from Judy’s stash.”

Every year, Dickinson said, the Train Station Quilters participate in a service project; this year, so far, they’ve done two.

“Most quilt groups, according to tradition, make service quilts,” said Dickinson. “It’s part of what you do.”

Dickinson recalled a quilt her group made, in the 1980s, that was auctioned off and raised over $7,000 for the Community Caregivers, a not-for-profit group that harnesses the energy and skill of volunteers to help people, particularly the elderly, continue to live in their homes.

Two years ago, for Albany County, the Train Station Quilters crafted bags for children who were being taken out of their homes by the Department of Social Services.

In addition, every year, the group crafts a quilt for the Altamont Free Library to raffle off.

The group began as “Kirk’s Quilters,” named for the late Doris Kirk, Dickinson said, and became the “Train Station Quilters” after Judith Wines, former director of the Altamont Free Library, and James Gaughan, Altamont’s former mayor, asked if the group would partner with the the village and library on projects. The library is located in the village’s historic train station.

Every Tuesday, a dozen regulars continue to meet at Altamont’s village hall to quilt.

“We will continue to make the pediatric quilts for the the Center For Donation and Transplant,” Dickinson said, and the group is likely to continue quilting covers for isolettes, in New Hampshire. “I didn’t realize how many babies are being born opioid-addicted,” she concluded.

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