CACHE – Mandy Martine-Ralston still remembers the day when her family adopted her sister and four other children, who were carrying trash bags that held their belongings.
“Even as a small child, I noticed that that was, to me, a little sad,” Martine-Ralston said Tuesday.
That memory prompted Martine-Ralston, shop manager for the Quilt N Bee store in Cache, and the staff to start a program that puts pillowcases in the hands of foster children in need. Children who receive the pillowcases may use them to either cover their pillows or carry their possessions.
Throughout the year leading up to November, the Quilt N Bee staff saves scraps of fabric – mostly novelty fabric – and puts together free kits for people who would like to make pillowcases. Each kit contains $24.99 worth of fabric, donated by the staff.
The store also offers free patterns for the pillowcases, which are not included in the kit.
2020 was the first year for the program. Quilt N Bee made 300 kits that year but ended up with 600 completed pillowcases, as some participants used their own materials to make pillowcases.
“They would come and get the kit and realize how much fabric was in it, and then they would use their own fabric to make more,” Martine-Ralston said.
Martine-Ralston said Quilt N Bee has made about 500 kits this year, and she is hoping to collect about 800 finished pillowcases.
People who want to participate in the program may pick up pillowcase kits and patterns from the Quilt N Bee, 506 SW C Ave. in Cache. Finished pillowcases should be returned to the store by Dec. 15 so they can be distributed in time for the holidays.
Quilt N Bee has teamed up with several partners to distribute the finished pillowcases, including TFI, a private nonprofit organization that provides foster care services for children across Oklahoma and other states. Other partners include the Comanche Nation, Cache Public Schools and the City of Cache.
A TFI staffer told Martine-Ralston that foster children who received pillowcases through the program were thrilled with the gift, Martine-Ralston said.
“It gives them a sense of – not security, but of being wanted,” she said. “Because I think a lot of kids who go through the foster care system, as my siblings did as well, were made to feel as though nobody wanted them. Nobody loved them, and all of those other things.
“And that’s my main goal in life: to make anybody and everybody that I can touch feel loved.”