Fisher House Quilt
Teachers and children hold up the America quilt
Recently the children, families and teachers of the Aqua Room at the Groton Community School in Groton, MA presented a beautiful “God Bless America” quilt to the Fisher House Boston. This wonderful donation all began with the singing of the song “God Bless America” by the young children in that class. For reasons unknown, the children embraced this particular song and began singing it not only in their classroom, but also for other classes as well throughout the school. On Veterans Day 2010, some enlisted men visited the class and of course, the students entertained them with “their” song. By this time, the entire Groton Community School knew that the Aqua Room was all about “God Bless America”. The children made their own God Bless America book, drawing every image and writing every word, working together as a team they completed a very impressive work of art!
Still, the children wanted to do more. With the help of Milly Cunningham, a master quilter, they began designing a God Bless America quilt and their newest project was full steam ahead. The children drew pictures, decided which images should be on the quilt, sketched out a design, picked the colors; it was a wonderful hands-on way to immerse the students into a project about a song they all love. Ms. Cunningham was there for the designing and drawing, brought in fabrics and worked with the children on every part of the quilt. It was truly a labor of love for everyone.
This has been a long and rewarding journey for this class, from singing the song to designing the quilt. They made a trip to the Intrepid Museum to show them the quilt, and now the quilt proudly hangs in the Fisher House Boston. This work of art is a beautiful reminder that patriotism is ageless, and alive and well in the hearts of a group of very young children from Groton, Massachusetts.
Our special thanks to teacher Jennie Fitzkee, her fellow teachers at the Groton Community School, and Master Quilter Milly Cunningham for making this project come to life and sharing it with the families of our hospitalized veterans.
