Veteran presented with Quilt of Valor

Veteran Olivia Rue has been presented with a Quilt of Valor for her service in the military.

Rue served as a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Crete, Greece, as an intelligence officer. She served from 1983 to 1989.

The quilt was pieced and finished by Sandpoint residents Carolyn Inge and Jeannie McMunn and was quilted by Kathy Manley of Kirkland, Wash.

The Quilts of Valor Foundation’s mission is to cover service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor. More than 200,000 quilts have been awarded to American veterans and military personnel since the foundation’s inception in 2003 by Catherine Roberts.

Roberts, whose son Nat had been deployed in Iraq, began making quilts for veterans after a dream where she saw a veteran who was sitting on the side of his bed, hunched over in complete pain and despair. The scene then shifted to the man wrapped in a quilt, but now exuding a sense of hope and well-being.

“The quilt had made this dramatic change,” Roberts said about the dream on the foundation’s website. “ The message of my dream was: quilts equal healing.”

The dream prompted Roberts to begin making quilts to give to veterans who had been touched by war, with the first being award in November 2003 November 2003 to a young soldier from Minnesota at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who had lost his leg in Iraq. From Robert’s home in Seaford, Deleware, and the first quilt awarded at WRAMC, the Quilts of Valor movement spread across the nation and beyond through the power of word-of-mouth and the Internet.

The non-profit, all-volunteer organization has a group of quilters in all 50 states. The quilts are hand made by quilting guilds and groups throughout the United States. When the quilt is completed, it is then awarded to the recipient.

Any service member from any war, any branch of any service, and located anywhere in the world can receive a quilt. Many of the military bases overseas and in the states have used the quilts to comfort and honor service members.

For more information on Quilts of Valor, go online to qofv.org.