What the memorial quilts mean to me

As some of you may know, each year the SUGAR Group provides owners the opportunity to honor their beloved gliders who pass away by placing a memorial to them on our quilt.

The quilt squares are sold for $20 on the SUGAR Group's website, and for each one purchased, a square is added to the quilt with the glider's name and date of passing embroidered on it.

For me, personally, this is a very meaningful thing. As a rescue home specializing in injury/illness, I see a lot more death than the average owner. Each glider that passes here takes a piece of my heart with them. I miss them all terribly, and I know that for ME, it is very important that their death mean something, that it not be in vain, that it give back in some way.

I have a necropsy performed on every glider that passes here so that what we learn from them can help gliders in the future. Additionally, I purchase a square for each of them on the memorial quilt.

These quilts are displayed at various glider functions throughout the year. One of them stays displayed in my home when it is not out at a gathering. Why? So I can remember not only my babies, but those that cared enough to give back. Each $20 given for a quilt square goes directly to the SUGAR Group's necropsy fund. This money is used to offset the cost of testing so that we can continue to offer necropsy/histopathology testing to the community at low cost. Every name that I see on these quilts represents to me a glider who, even in death, paid it forward. That $20 means that in the future, another owner can find some answers and that some day we can learn enough to make dramatic changes for the lives of gliders everywhere.

Each of the gliders represented on these quilts is precious to me, even if I never met them. They are my heroes. They are the ones who were owned by people who cared enough to ensure that their baby's passing helped someone/glider in the future. So, I proudly display these memorial quilts at each RRRoundup and am happy to share them with other event coordinators to see that they are displayed throughout the year. We also hold a special memorial for these heroes at the RRRoundup each year.

Each of these gliders mattered to someone, they matter to me, and now they matter to another who was blessed through the purchase of the quilt square.




I encourage you all to honor your loved ones this way. Do it for you, or for the lives you can touch by doing so. But do it. You won't regret it.
(you can purchase quilt squares here: http://www.sugargroup.org/Memorial-Quilts.html