In the past five years, the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club has made more than 500 stockings for local foster children and parents. Each holiday season, they craft the stockings and fill them with donated toys and goodies. Sequim Gazette photos by Matthew Nash

by MATTHEW NASH

Sequim Gazette

Members of the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club have completed 212 stockings for families of the North Olympic Foster Parents Association.

They presented the festive stockings to Colleen Robinson, coordinator for Foster Parents, at the club’s annual holiday party on Dec. 8. The quilt club also donated $400 toward presents.

This was the fifth year in a row stockings were made for families and most of the 208 club members worked on the project.

Volunteers from Karen’s Sequim Sewing Center and Sequim Community Church also made more than 300 pillowcases, which Robinson said are very popular with children.

Stockings made this year will be given out next year at Foster Parents’ Christmas party, along with toys and goodies. The agency handed out 128 stockings made last year at their party on Dec. 3. Additional items are shared with the Dream Center in Port Angeles and Head Start in Sequim.

Robinson said children in foster care typically have few possessions.

“These stockings and gifts are theirs and create a sense of ownership,” Robinson said. “It can go with them wherever they go and create a sense of familiarity from place to place.”

The Foster Parent Association supports 90 children on the peninsula and serves 200 people in relative and adoptive provider programs. Robinson said about 70 people total are supported in Sequim through the program.

For more information, contact North Olympic Foster Parents Association at 460-5560 or crcrir@aol.com.

Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club meets 9 a.m. Wednesdays at the Sequim Masonic Lodge 213, 700 S. Fifth Ave. Call 681-0795.