Spreading Love Through Blankets
What can a group of teens possibly do on their own? Ever since the beginning of the American-Turkish Association of North Carolina’s Youth Group’s founding, we knew that we should do something special. We wanted to connect with our roots — Turkey. Our group consists of nine enthusiastic high-schoolers, and we wanted to do a project that fostered collaboration and teamwork, but that was also fun for our group and beneficial for the recipients.
Thus, the idea of making blankets was born.
Double sided no-sew fleece blankets would allow us to have creative liberties with mixing and matching fun patterns and appealing solids to form a cute product, and the no-sew knot method made it easy for us to make the blankets without having much expertise. This idea of making blankets for the Turkish youth in orphanages was really exciting, but the task seemed too hard and complicated, until we remembered the Bridge to Tϋrkiye Fund (BTF).
Being a part of the Turkish community, we all knew about the amazing work BTF has done, and the idea of getting them to help with our project inspired us to work towards our dream. After working together with BTF leaders, who were amazing and kind enough to support us through every step, we finally came up with a realistic budget, specific group in need, and a game plan. We set our sights on Koruncukköy Bolluca — Çocuk Köyϋ in Istanbul, since BTF had worked with them before. Koruncukköy Bolluca — Çocuk Köyϋ is a facility whose goal is to provide support for children in need. The facilities consist of multiple houses, each housing 8–10 children who live in a family like setting. The Koruncuk Village was established in 1992, and has been supporting education and development of children ever since.
We then looked at the cost of fleece to set an approximate budget of $500, and began step one of the plan: writing a grant proposal! Once our proposal was accepted and funded by BTF, it was on to shopping for fleece, most of which was picked up from Joanne Fabrics. We made sure to buy the solid colors first, then go on to find cute patterns that matched the patterns and were suitable for all genders. Once all the fleece was bought, we started our test run blankets, cutting out templates for the fringe on the blankets, and testing out appropriate blanket lengths. The team was gathered up to test out the production of our first blankets in December 2018, and everyone had a blast! It was definitely a learning process at first, with some members of the group handling fabric for the first time ever, but by the end of it, everyone was laughing and having a great time! With the patterns set and the team excited, we started meeting every other weekend at the Turkish House in Cary to finish our goal of 30 blankets by mid-March.
It was a fun 3 months, and we finished the project in early March of 2019. The whole group was so proud, and everyone had their favorite blankets.
We decided to have a little bit of a more personal touch, so we attached little name tags and notes to our blankets before they were sent off.
But who would get these heavy boxes of blankets to the orphanage? Well, that’s where our lovely friends Dr. Gwen Sancar and Mr. Mehmet Göktan stepped in. Mr. Göktan, the president of ATA-NC was so kind as to bring our project to the ATA-NC Board meeting, and Dr. Gwen Sancar — Honorary Consul — graciously offered to get in touch with the Turkish Consul in Miami to see if they could lend a hand. With their help, we managed to have the honor and privilege of sending our blankets off in the hands of the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. He was kind enough to offer to take the blankets back with him to Turkey, where they would be distributed to the orphanage. Thus, we prepared a little presentation, and met with him one-on-one during his town-hall meeting in Chapel Hill! Finally, after keeping in touch with the lovely Mrs. Ayşe Gϋveniş, the General Manager of the Türkiye Korunmaya Muhtaç Çocuklar Vakfı who oversees the Koruncukköy Bolluca — Çocuk Köyϋ, to organize the delivery of the blankets, we were able to see the photos of the children once they received the blankets.
Their smiling faces instantly brought us joy, and we knew that our efforts had been more than worth it!
We are all so thankful to BTF for giving us the opportunity and the chance to chase this dream and make this impact, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds! I hope that beyond being a sweet story, this will inspire you and many other youth and adults to chase their dreams and reach out to their community! For those of you who are interested in making these blankets yourself, I have included instructions HERE!
