Join The Quilt Shop's 'Making Strides' team
The Quilt Shop is currently putting together a team for this year’s Making Strides walk, slated for Oct. 17 at the Dayton Dragons’ Fifth Third Field in Dayton. If you’d like to walk with the quilters, contact the shop at (937) 233-7021 or visit their Huber Heights location at 7340 Taylorsville Road.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This article is part of our month-long focus on breast cancer. To learn more or find ways to help, go to our Pink Edition Page.
HUBER HEIGHTS — The quilt is made up of an assortment of colored squares: Each square is a mixture of pink and white. Each square has messages scribbled in black. Each square is a life that has been touched by breast cancer.
For three special women, the quilt is a labor of love. For a community of breast cancer survivors, family members, and those still suffering from the disease, it’s a symbol of hope.
Carol Doolin, Joan Scott and Shari Hawthorne have been quilting for breast cancer for four years. Their newest quilt — designed especially for the 2009 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk on Oct. 17 — will celebrate breast cancer awareness around the world.
So far, the three women — two of whom have experienced breast cancer firsthand — have created four quilts for the American Cancer Association, and they have no plans of stopping.
Doolin and Scott met at the 2005 Making Strides walk. Scott had stitched together a quilt in honor of the event, and was inviting others to sign the squares.
Touched by the gesture, Doolin quickly signed the quilt herself and revealed that not only was she too a quilter, but she had just opened the Sulphur Grove Quilt Shop in Huber Heights. Since the quilt wasn’t yet finished, Doolin offered the shop’s services.
Every fall since then, Doolin and Hawthorne, who also works at the Quilt Shop, have helped Scott create a quilt for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and American Cancer Association events.
“The booth is always packed with people waiting to sign the quilt,” Doolin says, running her hands over the pink and white squares of the 2005 quilt. “Every time I look at them, I get goose bumps,”
Doolin has been participating in breast cancer awareness event since the age of 26 when her mother passed away from breast cancer.
“I just want to make people aware,” she explains.
Though a breast cancer survivor herself, Scott didn’t participate in awareness events until she joined Phi Theta Kappa, an honor society, at Sinclair Community College in 2000.
A retiree with a love for learning, she’s still at Sinclair and still working to raise awareness of breast cancer in the college community and beyond.
Scott has been in remission for more than 20 years, but doesn’t consider herself “cured.” Diagnosed in 1983 while with her husband who was stationed in Italy with the Air Force, she underwent a year of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
Now, she shares her passion for breast cancer awareness with her daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters.
“I didn’t think I would last long enough (to see these children),” she said. “Now, I have more than I (ever) expected.”
In addition to a shared history of breast cancer, both women also share a love of quilting and a generosity of spirit. Scott began quilting 30 years ago while working at the Oaks of West Kettering, making baby quilts with the residents. She then moved on to participate in Project Linus, a national effort to provide blankets and quilts for children in crisis.
Doolin opened the Sulphur Grove Quilt Shop in 2005 after moving to Huber Heights from Michigan. Every fall, the shop carries special breast cancer awareness fabric for those who want to create honorary quilts of their own.
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