THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 13, 1995 TAG: 9511130050
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
The power in the quilting squares is not so much in a single name, but in the list of them.
Ruth Spinella, May 19, 1983.
Kaye Comninaka, Oct. 3, 1978.
Mimi Dietrich, May 3, 1994.
Faye Wilkins, November 4, 1985.
The women who signed the panels of the ``Strides for Mammograms'' quilt are breast-cancer survivors. Their names and diagnosis dates are signed on quilting squares that will be sewn together by volunteer quilters later this year. They hope the quilt will relay three messages:
To those with breast cancer: They can survive and get on with life. To those without the disease: They should get regular mammograms. And to those who want mammograms but can't afford them: Maybe this quilt can help.
That's because the quilt is being used to raise funds to pay for mammograms for women who can't afford them.
A quilt stitched last year called ``Mammogram Quilt of Tidewater'' earned more than $1,000 and paid for mammograms for 25 women. About $500 has been raised so far for this year's quilt, sponsored by the Tidewater Quilting Guild.
Businesses and individuals donate money to the project, which gets them their business cards airbrushed on the quilt, and survivors of breast cancer get their names on the quilt free of charge. Theirs is the gift of hope.
Their names and dates of diagnosis appear below images of people running. Stitched across the chest of each runner will be a ribbon, as though each runner had just burst across the finish line.
For Ruth Spinella, the story behind her diagnosis date, May 19, 1983, carries a special significance. It was three years after she first felt the lump in her breast, and three years after a doctor told her not to worry about it. The diagnosis date is also a day in a week she had her first mammogram, a day in a month she would have surgery to remove a breast.
It's a story she uses to encourage women to have mammograms.
Patsy Monk, a registered nurse in Virginia Beach, came up with the idea of making quilts to raise money for mammograms after reading about fund-raising quilts in a quilting magazine.
Her mother died of breast cancer, so she thought the quilt could be a way to help fight the disease.
Monk and fellow quilter Susan Clark have been collecting the quilting panels for this quilt for months now, and will continue until they have enough for a good-sized quilt. ``It would be great if it were so big we couldn't hang it,'' Monk said. MEMO: For more information on the ``Strides for Mammograms'' quilt, call Susan
Clark at 468-9425.
ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
BATTLING BREAST CANCER
VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
Susan Clark, rear, and Patsy Monk have been collecting panels for
this year's quilt for months. They are holding the quilt they helped
put together last year to raise funds for mammograms.
by CNB