Winter Texans continue tradition of making quilts for the needy

Between the electronic bingo board and the lunch menu featuring taco salad for $3.50, the Winter Texans make quilts to keep children warm.

Every Tuesday morning at 8 a.m., the Canyon Lake RV Park Recreation Hall in Mission transforms into an assembly line. About 35 retirees sew fabric and trim loose threads. They hand-tie quilts together. By noon, they have a stack of more than two dozen quilts, bound for needy families in Nuevo Progreso.

Most of the time, the room is used for dances and other fun activities. But one morning each week it becomes a headquarters for a goodwill campaign, and it has done so for some time.

>> WANT TO HELP? To donate fabric or learn more about the charity effors, contact the Canyon Lake RV Park Recreation Hall at (956) 580-7654

 “We started in 1995,” said Cheryl Norman, one of the original organizers. “We went to our RVs, gathered up what we had and made some of the ugliest quilts you ever saw.”

Norman, who lives in Iowa during the summer months, laughs as she remembers the early days. Since then, they’ve assembled more than 1,000 quilts, almost entirely with donated fabric. They average about 200 each winter, and the designs have gone from ugly to gorgeous.

Most of the quilters are women, and the effort sprung from an older campaign to build homes for disadvantaged residents of Nuevo Progreso. More than 30 years ago, Canyon Lake residents started the home construction charity project, dubbed Mabel’s Building Mission. Norman and Arlene Casner, a resident originally from Indiana, wanted to help, but they don’t know construction. So they started making the quilts, and their contribution was much needed.

“Some of the families we’ve had have been big,” Casner said. “They’ve had 10 people. We had to make them 10 quilts.”

The volunteers also make layettes and baby blankets, and they also collect booties, sweaters and other clothes for the families’ children.

For materials, they depend on donated fabric and blanket scraps. Supplies occasionally run low, and the ladies host raffles to raise money. But most of the time, donations provide more than enough.

The volunteers enjoy their work, and the morning quilting sessions feel festive, with lots of laughing, conversation and tasty treats. The quilters split into groups. The women in the back work the sewing machines. One side of the room matches the proportions and the other hand-ties the quilts shut.

They break for coffee about half way through, and every session ends with show and tell, where the group admires the day’s work. Some men even work on the quilts.

James Sexton helped with building the houses until 2000, when he suffered heart problems. Now he works on the quilts, even though he lacks sewing skills. Sexton helps by salvaging electric blankets for fabric. People often chuck electric blankets into the trash when the wires or controls go bad. Sexton removes the faulty wiring and trims the left over fabric. He now works on the quilts side by side with his wife Dorothy.

On Tuesday morning, the group met as usual. They organized the fabric, measured proportions and sewed pieces together. After three hours of work and the usual coffee break, it was time for show and tell.

Casner and Dorothy Sexton stood in the front of the room, a folded stack of quilts and an almost-empty tin of cookies lay on a table in front of them. In the back of the rec hall, park residents began setting up chairs for the evening’s jam, where the retirees dance and sing songs.

More than 30 volunteers took seats in front of them.

Casner unfurled the first quilt, which was checkered with floral patterns and framed by a rim of pink. Applause erupted throughout the room.

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” one woman remarked.

“Wooo,” exclaimed another.

The reactions continued as they displayed a couple of dozen quilts. The group smiled and exchanged compliments. The quilts hadn’t left the room yet, and they were already making people happy.

Zack Quaintance covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4447.