BRIGHTON —Fourteen years ago, Brighton resident Sharon Horn was waiting at Rose Medical Center for her twin grandchildren to be born. The babies were arriving nearly three months early, so the waiting room was filled with tension.
They came out weighing 2 pounds, 11 ounces and 2 pounds, 13 ounces and were immediately put in an incubator for no less than three months. Shortly after their birth, a nurse came into the hospital room with a bag full of handmade blankets, clothes and a large quilt.
“It was so nice, because they used the quilt to cover the incubator,” Horn, 74, said. “They covered it so that there wouldn’t be so much light in, to keep their eyes growing. And then, as they got older, they wrapped them in the other blankets. It was so comforting.”
Horn asked the nurse where the gifts came from, and that’s when she found out about , a nonprofit formed by a group of volunteers who knit, stitch, sew and crochet everything from booties to blankets for premature babies all over the state.
Not long after that, Horn found out that there was a local group in Brighton, and she joined.
“It meant so much to me and my family,” Horn said. “I thought, ‘I can make quilts, too,’ and that’s how I got involved.”
Now with her grandchildren in high school, Horn spends the third Wednesday of every month in a big meeting room at the Brighton Seventh-Day Adventist Church at 567 E. Bromley Lane with about 25 other members of Warm Hearts Warm Babies, stuffing dolls and animals, putting the backs on quilts and cutting patterns for clothes.
The stuffed animals will go to emergency rooms all over Colorado, to police stations and inside layettes that are delivered to new mothers. The Brighton work group produces about 40 layettes every month filled with blankets, a quilt, at least three small outfits, hats, socks, pacifiers, bottles and mittens.
“It’s really designed to get mothers through those first few days,” said Carol Criswell, 59, the work meeting coordinator for Warm Heart Warm Babies in Brighton. “It will have blankets, a few diapers — whatever we can donate.”
Warms Heart Warm Babies started in the living room of a Brighton woman named Victoria Swain in 1998. Back then, there were about three members. Now, there are work groups in Loveland, Arvada and Colorado Springs. Criswell has been involved for about 16 years.
“It’s grown so much,” Criswell said. “We distribute between 3,000 and 5,000 items in each layette every month. It used to just be a few blankets and clothes.”
The layettes go to hospitals, doctor’s officers, day cares, foster homes, shelters, pregnancy centers and area clothing pantries everywhere from Pueblo to Loveland.
The group also makes burial clothes for newborns and takes them to hospitals. Criswell and six other volunteer drivers make their delivery rounds at the end of every month.
“It’s great for first-time moms, the work is beautifully done,” said Amber Robbins, a nurse at the Salud Family Health Center in Fort Lupton. “There’s a real, great need for these services.”
Criswell has been delivering about 16 layettes to Robbins for nearly two years. Robbins then takes each bundle and delivers them to nine Salud clinics from Brighton and Commerce City to Fort Collins and Sterling.
On workgroup days, the room inside the Seventh-Day Adventist Church buzzes with classic sewing machines and happy chatter as the (mostly) women saunter between tables and pack the layettes for deliveries.
“It’s rewarding to do the deliveries myself,” Criswell said. “I’ve had occasions where the moms have asked me to come back and see their little, tiny babies, and it means so much.”
Megan Mitchell: 303-954-2650, mmitchell@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Mmitchelldp
How to help
For more information, to volunteer, or find a volunteer group near you, send an email to : info@warmheartswarmbabies.org
