Students in Susan Spiers’ gifted class at South Side Elementary School have recently completed a unit on Fairy Tales. As a culminating activity, they created a fairy tale themed quilt for a needy child in Tibet. First, the students painted colorful depictions of various characters on muslin squares. Suzy McDonald then sewed the front of the quilt together. Afterward, the students visited Lynn Stockstill’s home where she and McDonald performed the quilting process with the students watching. Finally, Pat Grice completed the finishing step by hand-sewing the binding. The end result was an amazing quilt made with great love and care.

The quilt has been sent to a child in Tibet, a region in China which is forcibly ruled by China. The hope of the group is that the quilt will provide more than warmth to a child in Tibet. Quilts, not only keep us comfy and warm, but also can tell a story, can be ways to support and counsel and can be works of art.

Spiers stated that she learned about the More Than Warmth Web site at a teachers’ conference last summer and knew that it would be an ideal project for students to learn cooperative learning, good citizenship and compassion for others. To create an environment of compassion and acceptance of others, students need to be actively involved in projects in which they feel that have contributed.

For more information, visit www.morethanwarmth.org.