News Release
September 21, 2007

Young hands knit service network stretching far outside Thermopolis

The same hands that greeted NFL star Peyton Manning have also touched the lives of many families and the hearts of servicemen in Iraq.

She’s only 12, but Thermopolis quilter Laurel Leonhardt has stitched together a formidable community service record. A member of the Cowpokes 4-H Club in Hot Springs County, the daughter of Eacel and Dennis Leonhardt uses her considerable skills to help others.

“I learned to sew from Mom when I was 5. Mom taught all of us to sew,” said Laurel. That includes brothers David, Darren, Daniel and Dakota.

Leonardt is a seventh grader at Thermopolis Middle School. “Laurel is the ‘heart’ of our family,” said her mother. “She loves to help others and will put her own wants aside to help others. I cannot really tell you why she is so compassionate and thoughtful. She just has it in her, and we all benefit and can learn from her example.”

Her first quilting project wasn’t for 4-H. Her grandmother was supposed to be the recipient, but she never received it. “I liked it so much I kept it,” Leonhardt said, and smiled. Subsequent quilts went to teachers or teacher assistants at her school.

Leonhardt created “Homemade Hugs – from me to you” as a 4-H project in 2005. That year, she made and donated quilts to the Thermopolis Police Department and the Hot Springs County Sheriff’s Department. The project won grand champion state fair self-determined project. She said her ‘Homemade Hugs’ quilts, complete with a stuffed animal, are “like hugs kids can hold on to forever.”

4-H is the youth arm of the University of Wyoming’s Cooperative Extension Service, and its state offices are in the College of Agriculture.

Other projects have spun off from her efforts. Through brainstorming for ideas for a Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Join Hands project, in which youths and adults are challenged to work together for the betterment of a community, UW CES Educator Phyllis Lewis and Thrivent coordinator Bev Koerwitz suggested asking 4-H’ers who attend St. Paul’s Lutheran Church to work with church adults and make quilts to keep in emergency vehicles and for families in stressful situations. 

These 4-H’ers are also members of the Cowpokes 4-H Club, so that also involved Leonhardt and her ‘Homemade Hugs.’

With the Cowpokes helping the St. Paul’s sewers, 17 quilts were made for local emergency service agencies.  Four went to the H.O.P.E. (Help, Opportunity, Partnership and Empowerment) Agency in Thermopolis, which provides crisis intervention and referral services for victims of family violence. Thirteen tops were made. Laurel finished them, and they were donated to St. Vincent’s Healthcare in Billings, Mont.

.When Leonhardt decided to expand her outreach, Lewis contacted her sister, Avice Hoff, who lives in Montana. Hoff is in charge of collecting preemie- and regular-size quilts and blankets for St. Vincent’s Healthcare and the Deaconess Billings Clinic. 

“Laurel saw a need for her ‘Homemade Hugs’ to also include making quilts for these babies,” said Lewis. “She made six blankets for Project Linus (an organization that provides blankets to seriously ill or otherwise traumatized children) plus six more to restock the ones already given out by the Hot Springs County emergency service agencies.” 

Talking to the Thermopolis Quilt Group about the need for the smaller quilts, the energetic 12-year-old recruited the women who, so far, have created at least 40 preemie- or baby-size quilts. 

Servicemen thousands of miles away have also been touched by her efforts. “I came up with the idea we make valentines for the soldiers in Iraq and send them there,” said Leonhardt. “We made 80 to 100 valentine fabric hearts.”

One more project – she collected 107 books from 4-H members in Thermopolis to send to disadvantaged youths in Washington, D.C., for The Heart of America Foundation.

Leonhardt entered her community service efforts in the Prudential Spirit of Community Service award contest and won a trip to Washington, D.C., this past spring, where she met with Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning “before he went to meet the Queen of England,” recalled Leonhardt.

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Contact: Steven L. Miller, Senior Editor
Phone: (307) 766-6342
E-mail: slmiller@uwyo.edu
Archived News Site http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/UWAG/news.asp

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