MINOT, NORTH DAKOTA -- A group of giving, fun-spirited women meet every Tuesday at Vincent United Methodist Church.  Sowers of Love at Vincent in Minot, North Dakota create quilts and much more to give to those in need throughout the local community, region and world.

PHOTO:  Left to right -- Sally Verstraete, Linda Wade, Norma Chrest, and Carolyn Andrews, members of the Sowers of Love pose for a photo at Trinity Cancer Care Center before giving away comforting lap quilts to patients.  The group as donated over 150 quilts to Trinity.

Conversation is light and free flowing as women share plans for the upcoming holiday season.  Than someone suggests “We need to head over to Trinity Healthcare soon.”  “Let’s do it today,” said another.

The women have several lap size quilts that they have created.  They are anxious to give them away to cancer patients receiving treatment at Trinity Healthcare in Minot. 

In the past couple of years they have donated 150 quilts to the Trinity Cancer Care Center.  Patients use the quilts during treatment and then take them home.  “We hope they may feel that someone cares for them during this difficult time.”

Vincent’s Sowers of Love Quilting Group was started in February of 2009.  The first project was making 13 quilts by the middle of May for high school graduates.  “We threw ourselves into cutting, sewing and tying furiously and accomplished the task, “ said Linda Wade, a member of the group.  

Since that time, the group has made many more quilts for graduates, for patients who struggle with cancer in the congregation, and for small ones who are being baptized. 

The group has also sewn neck pillows for area nursing home residents and lap quilts for the VA Hospital in Fargo, North Dakota and Veterans Home in Lisbon, North Dakota. 

They quilted 20 quilts for families affected by flooding in Minot during the summer of 2011.  The quilts went to families who were being assisted by the Resources Agency Flood Team (RAFT) which had its’ headquarters at Vincent UMC.

Other projects have included 23 quilts for the PATH center in Minot, a local agency that places foster children. The group made decorative pillowcases and filled them with pillows as a gift to clients of the Domestic Violence Crisis Center. This year 75 school bags were sewn for mission school kits.

In 2012, the group published a cookbook for Vincent UMC’s 125th Anniversary called, We Sew, But We Can Cook, Too.  It is in the third printing.  The proceeds go toward buying equipment and fabrics so that “we may freely give away all we sew.”

Linda Wade noted, “During our quilting we always include a time for giving thanks to God for our blessings.” 

VINCENT SOWERS OF LOVE from Dakotas UMC on Vimeo.