HOW TO GET INVOLVED
First off, we encourage you to Contact Us if you are intrigued by this project and want to participate. You can request introductory and educational handouts, as well as a comprehensive Toolkit. The Toolkit has instructions for creating quilt squares and making quilts. It also includes many related empathy and belonging-based activities you can use with friends and family, community groups, churches, organizations, and other groups you may be part of.
We can help connect you with others in your area who may already be involved. We are happy to work with you and answer your questions. People around the country are finding their own creative ways to utilize the Welcome Quilt idea.
How can you bring this idea to your community?
You can download the story of how the Welcome Quilt Project developed Here. Request the Toolkit Here. Below are some ways we can help you get started with the project.
1) Make Welcome Squares to contribute to the project.
Drawing one or more Welcome Squares and sending them to the Welcome Quilt Project is an important contribution. This helps create more quilts to loan out for exhibits or send to places like the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio. All ages can find meaning in this fun activity. Making squares together is a great way to generate more in-depth discussion about immigration.
No art skill required! We’ll send you the necessary instructions.
2) Make a Welcome Quilt and send it to us, or find a place in your community to display it.
If you have contacted friends, family, coworkers, or neighbors—either individually or as a group—to make Welcome Squares, you may have enough for a quilt. If you are a quilter, or know one, we are happy to send you the Toolkit with information on materials and the specific pattern we use. If you display your quilt, please download the Exhibit Interaction Feedback signs from this website to post next to your quilt to explain the project and generate feedback.
For example, Nancy from Chicago made a Welcome Quilt with her grandsons that they displayed in their synagogue to help spread the word about this project. Find your own way to make the finished quilt visible to people who have immigrated, or send it to us to use in exhibits. Request the Toolkit
Don’t forget to send us pictures! Here’s How.
Nancy’s Welcome Quilt displayed in a Chicago Synagogue
3) Become a volunteer quilter for the project.
Contact the Welcome Quilt Project to volunteer to assemble quilts from Welcome Squares donated from around the country. We will send you the squares along with instructions for making the quilts. One quilter said: “You made a wonderful and easy-to-sew design, so it came together quickly and I had fun picking out the fabrics with my grandson.” Contact us!
4) Help bring a museum-quality exhibit to a venue in your town.
An 11-month Welcome Quilt exhibit at the Arizona History Museum was seen by many thousands of people and moved them deeply. We know firsthand that some people cried—it meant so much to them. The museum is able to loan the entire original exhibit, or parts of it, to qualified locations.
You can help spread the Welcome Quilt idea by approaching venues in your area and telling them about the exhibit. Many museums, libraries, community centers, churches, galleries, and other venues are happy to receive exhibit ideas from the community. We can work with you to prepare information about Welcome Quilts and help you in discussions with the Arizona History Museum, which now owns the original exhibit.
5) Design and build your own exhibit.
Borrow quilts directly from the Welcome Quilt Project and design your own exhibit. Whether it is large or small using a few quilts or many, we will work with you to help make your exhibit a success! We'll help you plan a timeline that allows you to invite local school or community groups to the exhibit. Offering some facilitated "field trips" allows participants to explore the various activities that have been created for the project to "get the conversation going" in your area.
You might stage an exhibit to coincide with immigration activities in your community or to celebrate other national refugee or immigration-related events throughout the year. There have been a number of such exhibits so far. Even a few quilts publicly displayed, almost anywhere, send an important message of inclusion and welcome. Go to the Exhibits tab to find out more. Contact us to explore an exhibit idea.
Arizona History Museum Exhibit
At the border in Texas
Patagonia, Arizona
Border Community Alliance, Tubac, Arizona
6) Below are more ways to bring the Welcome Quilt idea in your community.
Don’t forget to share what you are doing with the Welcome Quilt Project!
-
Make and send Welcome Quilts to specific communities impacted by immigration policies in response to local events.
When we at the Welcome Quilt Project saw that Springfield, Ohio, had become the target of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States in the fall of 2024, we responded by making quilts specifically for that community. Welcome messages were drawn, written in Haitian Creole, and sent to Springfield from people in Green Valley, Oro Valley, and Patagonia, Arizona, as well as from New Orleans, Louisiana. The Project reached out to a church in Springfield, which then contacted the Haitian Community Center, a local restaurant, and local churches to arrange delivery of the gifted quilts. The priest who facilitated the delivery said,
“This is what love looks like in Springfield today.”
-
Set up a Welcome Square-making table at a variety of events and venues in your area.
Introduce the Welcome Quilt Project at:
Multicultural fairs
Craft fairs
“Old Home Days” celebrations
Fall festivals
Potluck suppers
Library events
Conferences
Art galleries
Community centers
Immigration-oriented events
Read More
Your table can include materials for making squares and learning about the Project, such as:
Fabric squares on which to draw messages of welcome and hope
Fabric markers
An actual Welcome Quilt to display, or a poster depicting a Welcome Quilt
The Welcome Quilt informational handout
A copy of Lili’s Quilt to browse, helping people understand the reason for the quilts
“Interest sheets” for people to sign up and get involved in the WQP in your community
Sign-up sheets for recruiting quilters for the WQP in your community or nationally
You might also include an easel and markers to encourage people to think about and record their ideas related to the project, such as:
What would you bring in your backpack if you suddenly had to leave home, knowing you might not return?
What are some ways you could welcome newcomers and those who have been in the country many years to your community?
-
Make a Welcome Quilt for, and by, your place of business.
Create a welcoming environment at your workplace. Invite employees to write messages of welcome to fellow employees and customers of your business who have immigrated to the United States. Display the quilt prominently and place the Welcome Quilt Project sign next to it. You can find the sign in the Toolkit.
These squares were made by employees of the Gap.
-
Plan a Welcome Quilt retreat event.
When you have collected a good number of Welcome Squares, gather your group of quilters in one place and make the quilts together. Use the finished quilts in your own community or send them to the Project to help create additional exhibits. If you choose, engage the quilters in gaining a deeper understanding of the Welcome Quilt Project by doing some of the activities in the Toolkit together.
-
Bring the Welcome Quilt Project curriculum to your school system or after-school program.
Contact your child’s teacher or make an appointment with the school principal to discuss the project. In elementary, middle, or high school classes, begin by reading Lili’s Quilt to help students understand forced migration. Then choose activities from the Welcome Quilt Toolkit that best fit the age group you are working with. Conclude by making Welcome Squares.
Read More
After a quilter assembles the quilt, return it to the classroom so the students can decide where they would like to display it along with the Welcome Quilt Project sign. (One elementary school student in Arizona suggested that a quilt could be displayed at the border, with half on the Mexican side and half on the United States side.)
If you are hosting the Welcome Quilt Exhibit in your community, refer to the Toolkit for ideas about planning field trips for local schools.
-
Carry Welcome Quilts in parades in your community and display them at public events, including local protests.
Carry a Welcome Quilt created specifically for your town in local parades and other public events to spread the message of love and support in your community. Have a table with fabric squares and markers available at the end of the parade route for people to draw messages of welcome. Create quilts from these messages to hang in public places along with the Welcome Quilt Project Sign.
There are also many demonstrations and protests taking place related to immigration policies. Carrying Welcome Quilts expresses a much-needed positive attitude toward those who have already entered the country, as well as toward those who had hoped to immigrate but have been shut out.
-
Plan a “Welcome Quilt Week” at your place of worship.
In Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the First Congregational Church designed a Welcome Quilt exhibit and promoted it within both the church and the broader community. Children in Sunday School examined pictures drawn by children who had immigrated from Central America, depicting the things they loved.
Read More
The pastor read Lili’s Quilt during her sermon and discussed messages of welcome with the children. The congregation then heard the immigration story of one of its members. After the service, the congregation gathered in the fellowship hall to participate in activities planned for “Welcome Quilt Week.”
Check out the article in the local newspaper here: https://www.sheboyganpress.com/picture-gallery/news/2025/05/19/immigrant-welcome-quilts-on-display/83732480007/
-
Make a Welcome Quilt and gift it to a group or organization in your community that works on behalf of children, families and individuals who have immigrated to the United States.
Ask them to display it in their space and to bring it with them when they hold meetings or workshops in the community. They can also provide fabric squares and markers at events, inviting people to create messages of hope, welcome, and support that can be turned into additional quilts for the community or donated to the Welcome Quilt Project.
-
Plan a Summer Camp or Spring Break experience about immigration and incorporate the Welcome Quilt curriculum into the week’s activities.
Many organizations sponsor summer camp opportunities in their communities. Approach community centers, Boys & Girls Clubs, museums, scouting groups, your local YMCA/YWCA, after-school or summer school programs, places of worship, health clinics, art programs, or libraries to suggest adding the Welcome Quilt Project to their camp agenda.
Read More
For example, a church in Tucson, AZ hosted four groups of middle school and high school students from around the county in a week-long mission experience about immigration.
One afternoon the Welcome Quilt Project visited. The students learned how the project originated and about the work of project partner Voices from the Border. They read Lili’s Quilt and participated in activities related to the book. (See the Lili’s Quilt page on this website for activity ideas.) Then they all created Welcome Squares.
The squares were sewn into quilts by someone at the church who completed them in time for the groups to take back to their states. Once home, they would display their quilt and use it to tell their stories, to engage their congregations in some of the activities that they did, and to create their own congregational Welcome Quilts to share in their neighborhoods.
Feel free to contact Gale about “Zooming” as a guest speaker at your summer camp (welcomequiltproject@gmail.com).
-
Invite your friends to make Welcome Squares when you send out holiday greeting cards.
Include a fabric square(s) and invitation to your friends to make a Welcome Square as Gale did in her Christmas letter to her friends and family in 2019. Use the returned squares to make quilts for your own community or to donate to the Welcome Quilt Project.
(Below is an excerpt from Gale’s 2019 Christmas letter as an example).
December 24, 2019
SO - why am I sending you a piece of fabric? It's not a Christmas present from me - but it might be one from you. Here is how this fabric connects with God's love at Christmas and throughout the year.
Read More
So many of the messages that our newest guests have seen as they have entered our country have been filled with hate and are based on fear. What if we could start to change those to messages of welcome and encouragement? It is Christmas and God has given us the gift of His abundant love by sending His Son into the world.
Christianity is about loving our neighbors as ourselves - it is about welcoming the stranger and caring for those in need - it is about seeing God in all things.
Would you and your family draw a picture of welcome or encouragement to a newly immigrated family on these fabric squares? Send them to me so that I can sew them into quilts. I will approach places in the community where newly immigrated families are likely to go such as libraries, adult learning and literacy centers, schools, and churches and ask if the quilts can be displayed. Maybe there is a location near you that would welcome such a quilt. What if our collective words and messages of welcome and encouragement could begin to counteract messages based on hate and fear? It is a big dream, but is starts with a small action - a picture.
Merry Christmas!
Gale
-
Use the Toolkit to plan and implement discussions about immigration and welcoming in your community.
A person from New York who had attended an immigration retreat wanted to bring what she learned about immigration to her community. She planned to “travel” what she had learned using the Toolkit from the Project. She formed a team at her church and planned activities they wanted to do with the congregation. They would then be able to replicate what they did at their church in other places of worship and other venues in their community. This would keep the conversation going and add new dimensions depending on who sponsored the event.
Here is the planning document she sent to Gale and gave permission to share with others.
Read More
St. John’s Welcome Quilt Project
Sunday School (scheduled for Sunday, March 23)
Read the picture book, Lili’s Quilt (part of the Welcome Quilt Project)
Reflect and discuss as a class
Have the children make squares for the quilt
Brainstorm other ways to welcome migrants to our community
Display quilt squares with information about the Welcome Quilt Project in the church (location TBD, great hall?)
Adult Congregation (60 minutes)
Watch a video introduction to the Welcome Quilt Project
Read Lili’s Quilt
Discuss what we would take with us if we had to flee
Discuss traumas experienced by migrants once they arrive in the US
Brainstorm ways to counteract each of those traumas
Make quilt squares
Quilt Creation
Recruit a member of the congregation to sew the quilt(s) (finished size around 4’ x 5’). A toolkit will be provided with detailed directions.
Materials cost approx. $100 per quilt
Display the finished quilt in the Church where visitors will see it
Community Outreach - Implement a traveling “exhibit” of the Welcome Quilt and its background information. Locations may include:
High Schools- with corresponding educational program and square making
Libraries
Places of Worship
Social Services Organizations (e.g. Helping Hands, Town Wide Fund)
Town events centered around multi-culturalism, community, etc
Other locations where immigrants will see the quilts
The “discussions” noted above will be some of the lessons you have in the toolkit