Last week was up and down all week. On Monday I went to the social services agency and put some coupons out for people to take for a free quilt on Saturday.

It was the week that coronavirus response blew up in Poland.

They closed the schools.

On Thursday they had a big “meeting” and declared that on Sunday all international flights and trains would stop. They established borders again - stopping all cars going in and out of the country and allowing ONLY citizens and people with residency permits - no tourists at all. NONE.

Malls were going to close on Friday except for the grocery stores, pharmacies and dry cleaners. Grocery stores were to stay open but we were encouraged to shop normally - products would be available! Restaurants were going to be take out only.

Everyone was encouraged to stay home when not grocery shopping or going to work or at work (no socializing - “social distance” is the new motto.). Poland only had under 100+ cases by Thursday, but the numbers had grown rapidly from 44 earlier in the week.

On Tuesday I had gotten a call from one of the ladies at the social services agency and she had asked if she could come at a different time than all the other people.

On Wednesday I made an appointment with her for Friday - we were to meet at the building.

I knew she would pick up some quilts for her own “clients” as she has a certain number of people that she takes care of. She showed up on Friday with two friends - at least one of them was another social worker. Between the three of them, they took 26 quilts - 11, 7, and 8! Here are their piles! As you can see, they had sharp eyes and appreciated the “Big Fabric Haul” quilts!

I had discussed it with my husband - “Should I go ahead with the Give Away on Saturday or cancel it?”

I asked the social workers what I should do. They said to go ahead and do it.

(I was willing to go along with what they advised.)

My quandary about cancelling was that the people would have already “been out” if they had taken the time to come by foot or bike to the building. To cancel it without any word to them to tell them not to come seemed cruel. And of course, I had no way to let people know since I didn’t know who had received coupons.

The workers just recommended allowing one person at a time. So we went forward with it.

I kind of chuckled at the idea of one at a time since the grocery store down the street was body to body in lines though no panicking and no hoarding from what I could see.

And so we did. We were supposed to be open at 10 am on March 14. I went over early so I could let any early birds in so there wouldn’t be any lines built up. (Let me add that directly in our town or in the town where the outreach was there haven’t been any cases reported yet as of this writing - and certainly not by March 14.)

I did not ask everyone who came to use their photo in a blog post, but all the ones I asked said “Sure”. Here they are.

I know you will be encouraged to see these recipients. Everyone was a bit subdued due to the situation we all find ourselves in - but people were very grateful!

Those of you who help, and have helped with tops - thank you so very much! I have many more to work on this year - doing this give away kind of gives me more incentive to finish up more. My pile had been so high before that there wasn’t really room for a whole lot more quilts in my room where i keep them!

We never had a lot of people at once. I let two or three in at a time.

Overall, it went better than I expected.

I started with 157 quilts.

We gave away 78 quilts total. That leaves 79 quilts.

On Friday (tomorrow) I am going to take another 20 to a special school for children with hearing and seeing difficulties.

One of the ladies is going to go with me. She had asked if we had an extra 20 quilts for kids so that we could donate one for each child who stays in their boarding school.

Naturally the school is “out” right now, but someone will be working. I’ll let you know how that goes later.

After I give those away, that will leave me 59 quilts to start my next collection with.

That is still a lot of quilts, but until things all calm down, I will not try to give more away. Maybe I can finish it off by doing something later in the year. I don’t really want to keep almost 60 quilts in the building when they could be helping someone.

But since my expectations had lowered daily from Tuesday on - between bad weather and the situation deteriorating with regards to Poland’s coronavirus cases, I am okay with how many we were able to give away!

And the good thing is—people respected our “social distancing” and we all did just fine!

I know that we would have had a better turn out if this pandemic weren’t going on currently in the world, but it is, and so it was what it was…to use a well-worn expression.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!