Introduce the Welcome Quilt Project at:

• Multicultural fairs

• Craft fairs

• “Old Home Days” celebrations

• Fall festivals

• Pot luck suppers

• Library events

• Conferences

• Art galleries

• Community centers

• Immigration oriented events

Set up a table with materials for making squares and learning about the Project such as:

• Fabric squares on which to draw messages of welcome and hope

• Fabric markers

• An actual Welcome Quilt to display – or a poster depicting a Welcome Quilt

• The handout – “We’re Welcoming Immigrants with Welcome Quilts – Join the Movement”

• A copy of Lili’s Quilt to peruse to help understand the reason for the quilts;

• An easel and markers to engage people in thinking about and recording their ideas related to the project such as:

  • What would you bring in your backpack if you suddenly had to leave home knowing you might not return? or 

  • What are some ways you could welcome newcomers to your community?

• “Interest sheets” for people to sign up on to get involved in the WQP in your community; and

• Sign-ups for recruiting quilters for the WQP in your community or nationally. 

  Use the squares to make Welcome Quilts for your own community and/or donate squares to the WQP.
  
  Completed squares for the Welcome Quilt Project can be mailed to Gale Hall at PO Box 8267, Tucson, AZ 85738.
  

When we at the Welcome Quilt project saw that Springfield, Ohio had become the center of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States in the fall of 2024, we responded by making quilts specifically for that community. Welcome messages with accompanying drawings were written in Haitian Creole and sent to Springfield from people in Green Valley, Oro Valley, and Patagonia, Arizona as well as from New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Project reached out to a local church in Springfield which contacted the Haitian Community Center, a local restaurant, and local churches with gifts of the quilts. The priest in who facilitated the delivery of the quilts said, “This is what love looks like in Springfield today.” 

In Sheboygan, WI, the First Congregational Church designed a Welcome Quilt exhibit and advertised it for their church and community. Children in Sunday School examined pictures drawn by children who immigrated from Central America depicting what they loved. The pastor read Lili’s Quilt during her sermon and discussed messages of welcome with the children. The congregation then heard the immigration story of one of their members. After the service, the congregation went to the fellowship hall to participate in activities planned for “Welcome Quilt Week.”

Here is a brief video slide show of their Welcome Quilt Week:

https://www.facebook.com/fccsheboygan/videos/972308904793925

Check out the article in the local newspaper here: https://www.sheboyganpress.com/picture-gallery/news/2025/05/19/immigrant-welcome-quilts-on-display/83732480007/

Create a welcoming environment for newcomers at your workplace. Invite your employees to write messages of welcome to other employees and customers of your business who have immigrated to the United States. Display it prominently and include the WQP Sign next to it. You can find the sign in the Toolkit.

Carry a Welcome Quilt created specifically for your town in local parades and other public events to spread the message of love and support in your community. Have a table with fabric squares and markers available at the end of the parade route for people to draw messages of welcome. Create quilts from these messages to hang in public places along with the Welcome Quilt Project Sign.

Also, there are many demonstrations and protests of various kinds taking place relating to immigration policies. Carrying Welcome Quilts in these demonstrates a much-needed positive attitude towards immigrants.

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Many organizations sponsor summer camp opportunities in their communities. Approach community centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, museums, scouting groups, your local YMCA/YWCA, after-school or summer school programs, places of worship, health clinics, art programs, or libraries to suggest adding the Welcome Quilt Project to their camp’s agenda.

For example, a church in Tucson, AZ hosted 4 groups of middle school and high school students from around the county in week-long mission experience about immigration. One afternoon early in the week, the Welcome Quilt Project visited to talk about the project. The students learned how the project originated and the about the work of project partner Voices from the Border. They read Lili’s Quilt and participated in activities related to the book. (See the Lili’s Quilt page on this website for activity ideas.) Then they all created Welcome Squares. The squares were sewn into a quilt by someone at the church who completed it in time for the groups to take back to their states. Once home, they would display the quilt and use it to tell their stories, to engage their congregations in some of the activities that they did, and to create their own congregational Welcome Quilts to share in their neighborhoods.

Feel free to contact Gale about “zooming” as a guest speak at your summer camp. (welcomequiltproject@gmail.com).

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Contact your child’s teacher or make an appointment with the school principal to discuss the project. In either elementary, middle, or high school classes, begin by reading Lili’s Quilt to help students understand forced immigration. Then, choose activities from the Welcome Quilt Toolkit that best fit the age group you are working with. End by making Welcome Squares. After a quilter assembles the quilt, return the quilt to the classroom so the students can decide where they want to display it with the Welcome Quilt Project sign. (One elementary school student in Arizona suggested that a quilt could be displayed at the border with half on the Mexican side and half on the United States side.)

If you are hosting the Welcome Quilt Exhibit in your community, refer to the Toolkit for ideas about planning field trips to local schools.

A person from New York who had attended the Leaving Home Retreat (co-created by Gale Hall and Michelina Nicotera-Taxiera) wanted to bring what she learned about immigration to her community. She planned to “travel” what she had learned using the Toolkit from the WQP. She formed a team at her church and planned activities that they wanted to do with the congregation. They would then be able to replicate what they did at their church with other places of worship and other venues in their community. This would keep the conversation going and add new dimensions depending on who sponsored the event.

Here is the planning document that she sent to Gale and gave permission to share with others.

St. John’s Welcome Quilt Project

1. Sunday School (scheduled for Sunday, March 23)

   1.  Read the picture book, “Lili’s Quilt” (part of the Welcome Quilt Project)

   2.  Reflect and discuss as a class

   3.  Have the children make squares for the quilt

   4. Brainstorm other ways to welcome migrants to our community

   5. Display quilt squares with information about the Welcome Quilt program in the church (location TBD, great hall?)

2.  Adult Congregation (60 minutes)

   1. Watch a video introduction to the Welcome Quilt Program

   2. Read “Lili’s Quilt”

   3. Discuss what we would take with us if we had to flee

   4. Discuss traumas experienced by migrants once they arrive in the US

   5. Brainstorm ways to counteract each of those traumas

   6.    Make quilt squares

3.  Quilt Creation

   1. Recruit a member of the congregation to sew the quilt(s) (finished size around 4’ x 5’).  A toolkit will be provided with detailed directions.

   2. Materials cost approx. $100 per quilt

4.  Display the finished quilt in the Church where visitors will see it

5.  Community Outreach

   1. Implement a traveling “exhibit” of the Welcome Quilt and its background information. Locations may include:

      1. High Schools- with corresponding educational program and square making

      2. Libraries

      3. Places of Worship

      4. Social Services Organizations (e.g. Helping Hands, Town Wide Fund)

      5. Town events centered around multi-culturalism, community, etc.

      6. Other locations where immigrants will see the quilts.

The “discussions" noted above will be some of the lessons you have in the toolkit.

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Gift a Welcome Quilt to a group or organization in your community that works on behalf of children and families who are seeking asylum in the United States. Request that they hang it at their organization and encourage them to bring it with them to display when they conduct meetings or workshops in the community. They can even provide fabric squares and markers at events to invite people to create messages of hope, welcome, and support to be made into additional quilts for the community or to donate to the WQP.

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Include a fabric square(s) and invitation to your friends to make a Welcome Square as Gale did in her Christmas letter to her friends and family in 2019. Use the returned squares to make quilts for your own community or to donate to the Welcome Quilt project. (Read the following excerpt from Gale’s 2019 Christmas letter):

"Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is dancing to it". - The Power of Hope by Dutch Sheets
December 24, 2019

SO - why am I sending you a piece of fabric? It's not a Christmas present from me - but it might be one from you. Here is how this fabric connects with God's love at Christmas and throughout the year.

So many of the messages that our newest guests have seen as they have entered our country have been filled with hate and are based on fear. What if we could start to change those to messages of welcome and encouragement? It is Christmas and God has given us the gift of His abundant love by sending His Son into the world.

Christianity is about loving our neighbors as ourselves - it is about welcoming the stranger and caring for those in need - it is about seeing God in all things.

Would you and your family draw a picture of welcome or encouragement to a newly immigrated family on these fabric squares? Send them to me so that I can sew them into quilts. I will approach places in the community where newly immigrated families are likely to go such as libraries, adult learning and literacy centers, schools, and churches and ask if the quilts can be displayed. Maybe there is a location near you tha would welcome such a quilt. What if our collective words and messages of welcome and encouragement could begin to counteract messages based on hate and fear? It is a big dream, but is starts with a small action - a picture.

Merry Christmas!

Gale

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Contact the Project to volunteer to assemble quilts from Welcome Squares people have created and donated to the project. The WQP will send you the squares and the directions to make the quilt. Purchase your fabrics using the guidelines provided in the Toolkit, make the quilt, and send the completed quilt back to the project. These quilts will be used to create additional exhibits of quilts that can be loaned out for displays around the country.

When you have collected a good number of Welcome Squares, gather your group of quilters in one place and make the quilts together. Use the finished quilts in your own community or send them to the WQP to create additional exhibits. Engage the quilters in better understanding the WQP by doing some of the activities in the Toolkit together, if you choose.

Offer to write up a description of what you have done with the WQP to be included on the “What’s New” section of the WQP website. Include appropriate photos as well. Our hope is that this will be a place to encourage others to implement ideas that they read about in their own communities as appropriate. This will help the project to grow and evolve in meaningful and creative ways.

Welcome Squares or completed quilts that you want to donate to the WQP can be mailed to the following address:

Gale Hall
PO Box 8267
Tucson, AZ 85738