By Mindy Ragan Wood
Staff Writer
Piedmont’s Quilts of Valor chapter is spreading kindness beyond its city borders by giving quilts to veterans in the surrounding area.
Piedmont Area Veterans Association in conjunction with Quilts of Valor presented six veterans from Yukon and Okarche with quilts May 16 in PAVA’s new building.
More than 216,000 quilts have been given away nationwide since the charity’s inception. Laura Sylvester presides over the local chapter for QOV with several other women who call themselves “stitching sisters.” Since Jan. 2018, Sylvester said her team has made 49 quilts.
“Last year the one we did in El Reno some of those had been requested since 2017,” she said. “One of them I called and the guy had already passed away and that made me so sad.”
In addition to providing quilts to local veterans, QOV has pledged to donate 30 quilts a year outside Piedmont which will require around 42 quilts a year.
“That’s three for each of us,” Sylvester said.
The group is considering adding an evening class for younger working women who want to join to help supply the demand.
When the club started in January there were 300 applications from the national QOV website for quilts in Oklahoma alone. There are only eight chapters in the state. A chapter in Yukon recently closed.
Sometimes the club travels to a home bound veteran.
“There was a guy in Tuttle that he wouldn’t come out of his house because he had PTSD so bad,” Sylvester recalled. “He would ride to the store with his mom and back but that was it. So, we took it to his house.”
Another veteran in Yukon was also home bound and Sylvester’s crew took a quilt to his apartment.
“There’s nothing more honoring and humbling than just taking some time to spend on this,” she said. “We had five men who had been in the deployment and trauma center. They’re having problems now with things that happened 50 years ago. To see their tears, their joy and what they have made of themselves and attribute their success to the armed services, you just know there are things that happen around us that we can’t control, that you know God’s got his hands in things.”
The veterans were welcomed in the new PAVA Community Center among about 70 other guests for lunch.
“It was so nice,” Sylvester said. “We had the microphone and people could come up front and it was so much more relaxed. With a crowd like that we had it where they could serve themselves. Being there was night and day.”
Quilts were given to the following veterans.
Harley Richardson of the U.S. Army was drafted in 1943 and served in various bases in Texas prior to being sent to Europe where he served in the Battle of the Bulge. He was a part of the Army unit assigned to secure Dachau Concentration Camp.
James Thompson of the U.S. Army served in Texas and Germany before being assigned to Phouc Vinh, South Vietnam where he served as an M-60 door gunner. He returned to the states in November 1969.
Kevin Benedict of the U.S. Air Force joined in March 1999 and served at several state side bases as well as being deployed to the Middle East numerous times. He retired as a Master Sergeant in 2019.
William Santo of the U.S. Army joined in April 1967 and served two tours in Vietnam as well as five tours in Germany and a tour in Berlin. He retired in 1995 as a Command Sergeant Major.
Kenneth Cambron of the U.S. Air Force and United States Army served during the Cuban Missile crisis as well as serving a tour in Vietnam. He was reactivated in 1991 in support of Desert Storm. Cambron retired from the reserves in 1997 with a rank of Command Sergeant Major.
Frank Milledge, of the U.S. Army, was reassigned to Vietnam in May of 1967. Following his release from active duty in 1968 he spent four years with the Oklahoma Air National Guard.
