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Donated quilts help state literacy efforts
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Volunteers across Mississippi are sewing for a cause, finishing up quilts which will be auctioned off in support of literacy efforts.
Mississippi Homemaker Volunteer chapters in nearly every county are quilting projects they will donate for auction. Proceeds from the auction will build a scholarship fund that will eventually grant college money to relatives of homemaker volunteers.
Maggie Harris, Extension home economist in Simpson County, is heading up this year's auction.
"Our Mississippi Homemaker Volunteer president has asked each county to make at least one quilt," Harris said.
May Stanton of Natchez, 2000 through 2001 state president of the Mississippi Homemaker Volunteers, came up with the idea of Quilts for Education last year as a way to promote literacy and higher education in Mississippi.
"I asked each county to enforce their literacy program if they had one, and if they did not have one, to try to initiate some form of work with literacy," Stanton said. "This can be reading to students, tutoring, supplying books to the library, buying supplies for schools or individual children, working with senior citizens or subscribing to magazines in children's names."
Proceeds of the quilt auction, which last year raised $6,000, will go to establish a new Mississippi Homemaker Volunteer scholarship fund. When the balance reaches a certain level, scholarships will be awarded from it to homemakers or their relatives interested in going to college.
"I asked each county for a quilt," Stanton said. "The size, pattern and material is all left up to their quilting imagination."
The quilts will be on display in the Bost Building on campus at Mississippi State University during Mississippi Homemaker Volunteer state council week May 22 to 24.
The Mississippi Homemaker Volunteers is an outreach organization supported by the MSU Extension Service. Local chapters in each of Mississippi's counties work to strengthen families in areas such as leadership skills, health and nutrition, and teaching.
For more information, contact: Maggie Harris, (601) 847-1335
