As cold weather settles in around the Atlanta area, a warm blanket is a necessity. Yet the volunteers who make prayer blankets at Alpharetta Methodist Church understand being surrounded with warmth is a year-round essential.
For the past 23 years, members of the church have gathered once a week to cut, sew and assemble blankets for anyone who wants one.
“We make prayer blankets,” says Prayer Blanket Ministry Co-Chair Linda Sokowoski. “We lay hands over them and pray with them each week when we meet to make them -- and then they go out into the world.”
The fleece blankets can be found around the church for anyone to pick up and take for themselves or to give as gifts to someone in need.
“Whether it is someone struggling with an illness, death -- just anytime someone needs an extra hug from God, that’s what you get with a prayer blanket,” added Sokowoski. “They wrap up in it and feel His arms around them.”
Sokowoski has endless tales of the ministry’s power.
“I’ll never forget during the Iraq war people would send a blanket to their child who was serving abroad,” she said. “This one young fellow wrote back, and it was so sweet (we could picture these soldiers in all their gear and weaponry), and he said he got the prayer blanket from his grandma and ‘it makes me feel her presence and the comfort of Jesus’.”
The ministry provides blankets to local foster care programs, children battling cancer, Meals on Wheels to deliver to seniors and Veterans groups, particularly those helping emotionally struggling or homeless veterans.
At other times, the blankets help start a conversation for someone without faith.
The church provides the space and much of the funding needed to produce between 4 to 5,000 blankets each year. Joann (Fabrics) provides a discounted rate on fabric and a grant helped purchase used serger machines that simultaneously sew seams, trim off seam allowances and finish the raw fabric edges.
More helping hands are always desirable and not everyone needs to know how to sew. Some volunteers help cut the fleece, others put labels on the finished product and someone folds and ties up the blankets to be placed in baskets around the church or packages them for delivery to partner organizations.
At this time of giving, these volunteers are finding abundant truth in the adage, “It’s better to give than to receive.”
“In making them you can see the hand of God in all of it,” noted Sokowoski. “The groups that gather and the people that come -- it’s just beautiful.”
Stop by to donate or pick up a blanket for someone who can use an extra comforting hug at the main entrance of Alpharetta Methodist Church under the portico at 30 Cumming St. Help make a prayer blanket 9-11 a.m. or 6-7:45 p.m. most Tuesdays. Contact the church at 770-475-5576.
But Sokowoski says what they need most is prayer.
About the Author
