A huge day of Shipping of Quilts from Florida!

Friday, the 13th was the opposite of unlucky! For us here at Quilted Twins, it was a huge day of blessings and watching the Lord work many things out.

We were able to palletize and prepare 79 boxes for shipping out to Warsaw, Poland.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

Here are all 10 pallets with 8 boxes on each one, except for one that had only 7!

The day dawned super early for most of us, as we had a truck pickup scheduled for 10 a.m. We knew we needed to start by 7:30 a.m. at the latest to get all 79 “100 pound” boxes out of their storage spots, and loaded onto pallets, secured, labeled, strapped and saran wrapped!

By 7:30 a.m., we were well on our well. Sid, who was orchestrating all the behind the scenes angles for me, from his home computer, came and brought paperwork, traffic cones, strapping, tools and dollies. We provided: saran wrap, all the boxes, dollies, manpower, scissors, tape guns, tape and pallets!

He had written and read hundreds of emails and texts over the past 5 weeks, as we wrangled our way through first shipping 31 individual boxes, and lastly, the big day with 79 boxes all at the same time.

We had used FedEx for the first 31, but switched to UPS for this last final shipment.

Scott Fortunoff, President of Jaftex, has been a major “behind the scenes” player in this whole deal as well, providing verbal support, financial support and lastly, and most importantly, offering his connections and pricing as a huge shipper of fabrics. Jaftex has underwritten the shipping of the first 31 boxes, and you all the final 79.

Though we never saw Scott physically, he has always just been a quick email or text away. Sid has been in contact regularly with him, Pablo, the FedEx Rep from NYC, the FedEx Rep from Poland, Greg Fortunoff, Scott’s brother, in charge of shipping at the Jaftex warehouse and then the same with the Stof rep, out of Denmark and several more, of whom I’m not even sure.

Sid did masterful job of it. That was all done behind the scenes and prior to Friday!

By 8 a.m. we had a core crew of men and ladies there, putting boxes on pallets, which were spread over the end of our parking lot at our shopping center. We got some stares from those who came in to get their hair cut, who didn’t know what we were doing, but everything went well.

We are rejoicing that absolutely no one got hurt. We didn’t even get so much as a wasp sting or snapped strapping cut!

Once the guys got 4 boxes, weighing from 80 to 158 pounds) on the bottom layer of each pallet, the heavy lifting began. Then they had to wrangle the top row of 4 boxes up to sit on top of the lower 4. They had to do some shifting when they found that we had some 80 pound boxes that needed to have 125 pounders sitting on them. They swapped that.

Then we applied all the shipping labels. One per box.

Then, we strapped. The strapping part was the slowest part as each box needed to have 4 straps put around it, with the first two securing the boxes to themselves and the final two securing them to the pallet itself.

Once we got that done, then came the easiest part — running the saran wrap. However, by then it was getting quite warm and running around the boxes was not only exhausting, it made us dizzy. Try running quickly around a box, especially nearing the ground, with your head way down, and it being 85 degrees outside.

But with teamwork, we got that done.

In the middle of our palletizing the boxes, we got a call that our truck driver would not come until 12:30 p.m. instead of 10 a.m. We all breathed a sigh of relief, as had he come at 10 a.m., we would have JUST finished. This way, we were able to finish, clean up, get everything put away, take pictures, rest a bit, drink some fluids, and then do more photographing and helping!

This was the final pallet, which was a bit tricky to get onto his truck. But thankfully, this was NOT this truck driver’s first day on the job! He did a masterful job!

When the truck got there, then Stephen and Ken helped the driver get the pallets onto the lift gate. It was an initial test of our strapping and saran wrapping. I’m glad nothing fell off! The driver was great, and once we explained what we were doing, he was thrilled to be a part of it!

Notice those dark clouds right above the truck???

We were completely done by 1:15 p.m. with all the loading and paperwork. While the truck driver was loading the last pallets onto his truck, thunder clouds started to roll in! The Lord held off the rain for another 20 minutes. By 1:35 p.m.  it was raining beautiful big drops of rain! But not a single one was getting on us!

Now, we’re passing the baton on to Becky and Mike in Poland. They have a few days to prepare a spot for these pallets.  Altogether, we’ve shipped just over 12,000 pounds of quilts and pillowcases, and though we haven’t totaled everything, we’re sure that it’ll be over 6000 items that we’ve sent.

We could NOT have done this without you.

The most exciting thing of all was what Becky wrote two days ago.. that this is exactly the thing that they are needing that few people are providing!

Our hearts and full. We cannot thank you enough.

Though I want to rest for a week, I can’t. For the first time in 7 weeks, there’s not a single donation quilt around to show you! They are gone! Shipped, and in just a “little while” they will be providing warmth, comfort, and hopefully, some love from those of us here in America!

But there are many other things to do, many of which were put off, “until the quilts were shipped.”

You’ll have to look at the beauties that Becky will post about! You just might see one that you made or brought to us!

Our hearts are thrilled to be finished with the job. We learned a lot, and we now know why non-profits have entire teams of people running such operations! You were our team! You know who you are. Some of you made quilts. Some of you packed, organized, culled through, emptied trash, carried quilts, delivered them, made pillowcases, brought space bags, provided boxes, or gave money for any of the needed items!

Perhaps some day I’ll sit down and write down all the ways that the Lord orchestrated things behind the scenes that I’m aware of.. but that’ll have to be another day when I’m refreshed!

For now, let me conclude with that we make an awesome team and I’m thrilled to have had a part in it! Now, let’s pray that we never have such a horrible thing happen to our own land!

I’m ever so grateful we could have a small part in helping individuals who are hurting!

Rachael Woodard15 Comments