Remembering lives with warmth and dignity.

Each year, advocates for those experiencing homelessness come together to mourn folks who die on the street. This is always done on December 21st – the winter solstice and the longest night of the year.

Rather than relying solely on countless traditional candlelight vigils held across the nation, our founders established the blanket project as an active, tactile alternative to commemorate the loss of lives lived on the street.

Co-founder Pat LaMarche spent decades as a journalist covering homelessness and poverty issues. Her constant coverage yielded an interesting invitation: LaMarche ended up transitioning to a part-time media presence and running homeless shelters full time. Today, she is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on poverty and homelessness as it relates to everyday people and the government agencies tasked with mitigating the issue.

In her volunteer capacity as a board member for the Charles Bruce Foundation (a 501(c)(3) arts organization), LaMarche reached out to invaluable friends: Lutheran leaders Rev. Matthew Best and Deacon Marsha Roscoe, as well as Max Donnelly – a computer wiz with lived experience in homelessness. Together, they started the blanket project.

Since 2021, we’ve amassed thousands of volunteers. Board members of the Charles Bruce Foundation together with representatives from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America make up the backbone of the project, but we have outreach to communities across the nation that help! Everyone is welcome.

The blanket project collects HANDMADE blankets from across the country and around the world to assemble a massive art display. Thousands of volunteers create afghans, quilts, and woven blankets. Following the display, the blankets are gently folded and given to agencies for distribution to folks in need. By January, blanket makers start creating again.

#memorialblanket and their many area partners have distributed nearly 8,000 blankets and raised awareness about the true face of homelessness. Mommies, daddies, grandparents, children, students, infants, veterans – families and individuals all comprise the U.S. population of persons experiencing homelessness.

In fact, the U.S. Department of Education counts 1.5 million school children experiencing homelessness – and this doesn’t count babies, toddlers, parents, grandparents, and other individuals. During LaMarche’s time as a shelter administrator, 55% of their census had an income and 30% more were their kids: a full 85% for the better part of a decade representing the working poor and their kids.