240 quilts emerge from Sundahl Lutheran's church basement, handmade with farm roots and experience

The quilters of the Sundahl Lutheran Church of Aneta, North Dakota, made 240 quilts this winter for newcomers to the community, baby shower gifts, benefits, local missions, homeless shelters and Lutheran World Relief. The group also creates and sends layettes, school kits and health kits for Lutheran World Relief. According to the 2020 census, Aneta's population is 234 residents.

Opinion by Katie Pinke

April 21, 2023 at 5:30 AM

Find the good in your community. I found community goodness in the basement of a Lutheran church when I visited my mom's quilting group.

Each Wednesday from October through April, a handful of women and one man gather in the basement of Sundahl Lutheran Church in Aneta, located in east-central North Dakota. The town's population is listed as 234 in the 2020 U.S. Census. The church's attendance is 35, on a "good Sunday" says my mom, Jane.

240 quilts fill the sanctuary of Sundahl Lutheran Church in Aneta, North Dakota. Each was handmade this winter, utilizing donated sheets and fabric. The core group who create the quilts is about eight people who meet weekly. Each person on the quilting team has farm roots and ties, growing up on farms, still actively farming or retired from farming.

The purpose of quilting meets needs from a local to global impact.

"There has been a need here locally and I love donating to them," said Mary Lee Wall, chairperson of the Sundahl Lutheran Church quilting. "There is also a need for children size quilts and we got the job done. My mission is to fulfill the needs of others in our area, for them feel the love, caring and warmth of our quilts. We have so many left, of course for the need overseas."

The quilting group all say they enjoy the socializing and their visits each week, but they keep their hands moving, creating 240 handmade quilts from last October through this April.

The purpose of each quilt varies as quilts are blessed in a church service and delivered to local homeless shelters, missions, area Bible camps, crisis centers and many onto for global distribution.

Spring snow with icy roads canceled weekly quilting on Wednesday, April 19 in Aneta, North Dakota at Sundahl Lutheran Church. Despite the cancellation, five volunteers were working when Katie Pinke visited.

Additionally new residents of Aneta are often given a quilt as a welcome gift, quilts are donated to local benefits, and some are shared as gifts at church baby showers.

If you're never experienced the gift of a quilt, which I equate to being wrapped in a warm hug, you can also buy quilts from Sundahl for $50.

60-inch x 80-inch quilts sell for $50 each at Sundahl Lutheran Church in Aneta, North Dakota, to offset the cost of purchasing quality batting for each quilt made.

The group has sold 29 quilts this year to offset the expense of the batting, the filler in quilts that gives it warmth.

Sundahl Lutheran Church's basement is the home to local quilters volunteering their time each winter.

The volunteer group all live and know farm life, having been raised on farms, still actively farming or now retired from farming.

They know how to work with their hands, and one quilter told me the work is "easy to do."

The group connects for socializing in the winter along with the work that gives them satisfaction that they're "doing it for a purpose," a member said to me.

Jane Lukens, a lifelong member of Sundahl Lutheran church, overlooks the quilts completed this winter and spring. Lukens sews the edges of quilts with a zig-zag stitch to make the quilts "good and sturdy" she says. Lukens is the mom of Agweek's Katie Pinke.

LWR Mission Quilts provide specific guidelines and how to make a quilt in three steps. Each is sized at 60 inches by 80 inches and according to the LWR website provide bedding, a tent or floor covering to those in need. The guidelines keep quilts consistent. On average, 300,000 quilts are created and donated annually through LWR.

The mission of relief quilts and kits started during World War II for war-torn European countries and today remains the LWR longest-standing program.

Sundahl also creates LWR kits from layettes of baby clothes, blankets and diapers to school kits with things to fill a school desk to health kits with towels and supplies to take a shower.

Bob Retzlaff irons donated fabrics and sheets weekly at Sundahl Lutheran Church quilting in Aneta, North Dakota, from October through April. Retzlaff is a retired farmer and rancher and attends quilting with his wife, Linda. Photo taken on April 19, 2023.

Behind the quilters area in the Sundahl Lutheran basement stands an ironing board and iron. Every week, retired farmer and rancher Bob Retzlaff irons all donated sheets and fabric for the quilters to use. He doesn't think he'll be able to recruit other men to join him in the work, but he enjoys the routine and work of volunteering for the quilting mission of Sundahl that he and his wife, Linda, attend.

Handmade quilts drape over the pews of Sundahl Lutheran Church. Quilts are donated to local causes and people first and then the rest are donated to Lutheran World Relief for global distribution. Each quilt meets Lutheran World Relief Mission Quilt standards for consistency and quality. Quilts can be used for bedding, a tent or floor covering for those in need.

Read more of Katie Pinke's The Pinke Post:

Stay out of the future to see what life brings

Mar 22, 2024
Remembering the way it used to be but not returning to it

Jan 26, 2024
Why did a stranger gift me a subscription to a local newspaper?

Jan 12, 2024
Buying a 4-H beef heifer on your 16th birthday

Dec 22, 2023

My mom says I would love quilting. I said that since I don't quilt, sew or iron, I would not fit in. She answered back, "But you can tie! You would love it." She gave me the reminder that each of us can find a place to serve no matter how big or small the role may seem or how rural we may live.

Learn from the quilters. If you feel a nudge to serve in your community, plug in and find a place. Service makes our spaces and places stronger. If you're long established in a volunteering role, ask a new member to join you. Welcome new people and ideas to your community.

If you desire a more vibrant rural America, you're not too young, old or inexperienced to do good work.
Let's carve out time to do what we can, with what we have, where we are. It may start in a rural church basement for you. Thank you to the Sundahl quilters for your examples of mission and hearts of service.

Thank you to each of you reading making an impact in seen and unseen ways, wherever you call home.

Pinke is the publisher and general manager of Agweek. She can be reached at kpinke@agweek.com, or connect with her on Twitter @katpinke.

Opinion by Katie Pinke

Katie Pinke serves as Agweek and AgweekTV's publisher and general manager and since 2015 has written a weekly column. Pinke resides in rural North Dakota with her husband and children where she is a 4-H leader, active community volunteer, and a proud fifth-generation farmers' daughter.