GREENFIELD — The blankets a group of Eastern Hancock Elementary School students made earlier this year will now sit in the trunks of Greenfield Police Department patrol cars — ready to be gifted to local kids in crisis.
Fourth-graders from Eastern Hancock Elementary School in February gave 100 handmade blankets to the Bag Ladies Quilt Club, a Hancock County volunteer organization whose mission is to provide kids a bit of comfort in times of trauma.
This week, Shelia Baker, the leader of the quilt club, donated those same blankets to Greenfield police, officials announced this week on the department’s Facebook page. The department’s 42 officers will carry the blankets in their cars to give to the children they meet on their patrols of the city.
The blankets should bring some comfort to children after a traumatic event, officers say.
That’s the core mission of the Bag Ladies Quilt Club.
Last year, the organization began sewing quilts to give to Hancock County foster children, to give to each child a comfort blanket when they are removed from their homes, officials said.
Each year, the Bag Ladies deliver about 200 handmade blankets to the Indiana Department of Child Services office in downtown Greenfield to be given to a child as they are removed from their homes and placed in foster care.
Debbie Froman, a teacher at Eastern Hancock Elementary School, got the school’s more than 90 fourth-grade students to make blankets to donate to the Bag Ladies with the goal of teaching them about empathy, respect and the tough times some of their young peers might be facing.
They handed out their blankets on Valentine’s Day.