For four years, volunteer knitters, crocheters, and sewists have created handmade blankets for the annual Homeless Memorial Blanket Project.
Their goal — outside of blanketing those experiencing homelessness with love and warmth — is to honor those who have lost their lives while living on the street, and advocate for a future without homelessness.
“I spent the first five months of my most recent homelessness in my car,” Maine resident Joyce Hauslein told The Progressive Magazine. “I then went to a shelter for thirteen months. While there, I constantly crocheted; I gave the afghans I made to people as gifts when they left the facility. Many of them told me it was the only blanket they had.”
Hauslein has been homeless twice; first in 1993 and again in 2020, when her landlord evicted her in order to turn her beachfront apartment into a vacation rental property.
In that second period of homelessness, she became involved with the Blanket Project.
Now housed, she continues to crochet.
“I know what it feels like to think no one cares about you,” she said.
Her efforts — along with hundreds of other crafters’ — culminate in an annual public art piece and distribution point in major cities in the eastern United States.
In prior years, the Blanket Project has displayed its donated blankets in Washington, DC, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Carlisle, PA.
Most recently, in December of 2024, organizers brought nearly 1,000 blankets — gathered from all 50 states and several countries — to Philadelphia’s Independence National Historic Park.
“If we can make a square, we can sew them all together and make one blanket,” the project’s founder, Pat LaMarche, told CBS News.
LaMarche is a former TV journalist who found a passion in reporting on homelessness — and crocheting. When she wasn’t delivering the news, she’d spend time teaching about generosity through crocheting blankets at a local high school in Philadelphia.
Since 2021, with the help of other volunteers, she has led the annual project. This past year, she went on a 12-state tour to collect blankets up and down the east coast.
“If we get 30, then that’s what 30 people look like when they have nowhere to sleep,” LaMarche told CBS News.
But they collected far more than 30.
Lutheran pastor Matthew Best helps direct the Blanket Project alongside LaMarche.
“We initially intended it to be a one-day thing,” he told The Progressive Magazine. “But over time, it has become a beautiful, viral effort that keeps extending.”
“We received a blanket from Australia this year,” he continued. “We have no idea how this person heard about the project but it has been amazing, incredible really, to think about the hundreds of people who are sewing, knitting, and crocheting these blankets and spending their time and money to make something special for a complete stranger.”
After the hundreds of blankets are collected, they are laid out in a display for the public to see and learn more about the safety risks of homelessness, like hypothermia, which takes the lives of an estimated 700 unhoused people in the U.S. every year.
“Allowing people to be unhoused in the richest country in the history of the world is a political choice,” Best told The Progressive Magazine.
“The hundreds of quilters who donate these bed coverings are actually doing more to help the homeless than most of our policymakers.”
Blanket Project representatives continue to extend their efforts to end homelessness outside of the annual event. Last year, they blanketed the steps of the Supreme Court when federal judges ruled on Grants Pass v. Johnson, ultimately deciding that cities have the right to enforce criminal penalties for those sleeping outside.
This ruling made the annual Philadelphia project that much more resonant for LaMarche.
“The message of independence is too huge to ignore. We are at the cradle of liberty, Independence Hall,” LaMarche told CBS News. “There’s zero independence when you have to beg for everything.”
Volunteers created blankets in two sizes for families and individuals, which were then distributed to those without homes immediately following the public display.
While Philadelphia community members were encouraged to pick up blankets from the event, over 30 area outreach workers were also in attendance, collecting blankets to distribute among high-need groups in the area.
“Receiving a present like this tells the recipient that they deserve beautiful things,” LaMarche told The Progressive Magazine.
“Handmade quilts are expensive, and when an individual or family is given one, it tells them that they are worthy.”
Those interested in joining future Homeless Memorial Blanket Project events can join the organization’s Facebook group or sign up for newsletter updates.
Header image courtesy of Pat LaMarche/Facebook
