Club members are already beginning work on the 2005 quilt.

The beautiful pansy quilt is almost complete and ready to go to a good home and for a good cause.

The quilt, made by the McCracken County Extension Homemakers quilting club, will be donated to the local Crime Stoppers organization to be raffled this spring. The proceeds go to aid the organization’s work.

With only the finishing touches yet to be completed, quilting club members already are turning their attention and needles to the 2005 quilt – the 15thone for Crime Stoppers.

“They have really done some fine quilts for us,” said Joe Pat Oakley, board treasurer of the Paducah and McCracken County Crime Stoppers Program.

Louise Crawley, president of the Homemakers quilting club, said the 2004 quilt still needs binding to be ready to be sold during the American Quilter’s Society Show in Paducah on April 21-24, 2004.

Each member of the quilting club makes blocks for the quilt, and then the blocks are put together and quilted by members.

Crawley said she began quilting when she was 8 years old and has made countless quilts over the years.

“I really enjoy it,” she said.

Since 1991, only once has a local person walked away with the winning ticket for the quilt. Quilts made by the Homemakers for this project are scattered across the United States. Winners have come from New York, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana and Kentucky.

Crawley said they were approached about doing the quilts by a representative of Crime Stoppers and the Homemakers were more than happy to help.

“We started out with a small project,” she said.

The first two years, the quilts were a scrap jewel box pattern but since then the quilt pattern is not the same from one year to the next, although some are repeated in later years. The 2005 quilt will be embroidered baskets all in blue, said Ellen Carrico, club treasurer.

The money raised by the quilt raffle is used by the Crime Stoppers program in Paducah and McCracken County to help pay rewards to people that call in tips that help solve crimes. The tips are done anonymously. Every year, they raise more than $1,000 through the quilt raffle.

“We make several rewards in a year’s time,” Oakley said. “The quilts really help.”

Crime Stoppers began in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1976. Members of the local community, in partnership with media and law enforcement, began the program in an effort to provide crime-solving assistance to law enforcement. A cash reward is offered to anonymous persons who telephone the Crime Stoppers hot line with information that leads to the arrest and indictment of the person(s) responsible for a crime. Today there are more than 1,000 crime stopper programs around the world.

A board of directors that approves rewards, raises funds, and promotes the program administers each Crime Stopper chapter.

To honor the Homemakers’ contribution, the quilt makers are given a luncheon by the Crime Stoppers organization each year, Oakley said.

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