Video Courtesy of KABC News
Berkeley Hall students with quilt (Photo courtesy of Berkeley Hall School)
Twenty-three kindergartners from the Berkeley Hall School in Los Angeles will present a homemade "quilt of valor" to representatives of UCLA's Operation Mend, a program that provides reconstructive surgeries and medical services to military members severely injured and disfigured during service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A military tradition, "quilts of valor" are homemade quilts given to wounded warriors to provide warmth and comfort. The kindergartners' quilt will be presented to Patti Taylor, a retired U.S. Army nurse and volunteer nurse with Operation Mend who also sews quilts for patients, and Melanie Gideon, manager of Operation Mend.
The idea for the kindergarten quilt project came from Barbara DeNisi, the children's teacher, who was inspired by an article she read in the Los Angeles Daily News about Taylor's quilting group, which has crafted more than 50 quilts for Operation Mend patients.
Each square in the kindergartners' quilt contains a tracing of a student's hand, surrounded by a heart. The 24th square, in the bottom right-hand corner reads, "We salute you with our hands and love you with our hearts." A student's mother sewed the squares into the quilt.
