Puerto Ricans recovering from Hurricane Maria still need food, water, and electricity, but they also need acts of love and comfort.
Quilts, according to Timm Bond, the owner of a fabric shop in Mount Dora, were the best way to fulfill that need. “The whole idea behind quilting is when quilters make a quilt there’s always a little bit of them that goes into the quilt so a lot of people will say, you know, with the quilt we’re sharing a hug of love because we put love into that quilt when we made the quilt," says Rob.
Bond’s business held a quilt drive, asking community quilters for any spare quilts they had to send to Puerto Rico. The drive brought in fifty large handmade quilts. Each quilt can take forty hours to make. Due to the immediate need of Puerto Ricans, Bond asked quilters to donate quilts they had made in the past.
After the Pulse nightclub tragedy, Bond and Mount Dora's quilting community spent a week hand-sewing quilts for those impacted by the devastating event.
Bond hopes the comforting gesture of gifting a quilt will resonate in a postie manner for residents of Puerto Rico, “hopefully that feeling of love and support, that they can rebuild their lives quickly with a little less pain."