By KAITLYN NAPLES STAFF WRITER While Deb Van Steenbergen was attending cancer treatments with her husband, she noticed many patients receiving treatment were there by themselves. “It gets lonely, and I just felt so bad for those patients who were by themselves, I really wanted to do something,” Van Steenbergen said, adding that she has always sewn and quilted and decided she wanted to make quilts for the cancer patients. That is when Quilts that Care was born last April at The Harold Leever Regional Cancer Center in Waterbury. Van Steenbergen, who lost her husband to cancer last year, asked the Leever Center if she could quilt there and give the quilts to the patients. She advertised for her first meeting, and 25 people showed up. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said, adding that by last December the group had already made 107 quilts, and as of last week the group was at 181 quilts that have been handmade by local citizens. In September, Van Steenbergen branched out the group and started offering meetings in Bristol at the main library, in addition to meeting at the Leever Center, and another facility in Naugatuck. About 95 percent of all the fabric [...]
By KAITLYN NAPLES STAFF WRITER While Deb Van Steenbergen was attending cancer treatments with her husband, she noticed many patients receiving treatment were there by themselves. “It gets lonely, and I just felt so bad for those patients who were by themselves, I really wanted to do something,” Van Steenbergen said, adding that she has always sewn and quilted and decided she wanted to make quilts for the cancer patients. That is when Quilts that Care was born last April at The Harold Leever Regional Cancer Center in Waterbury. Van Steenbergen, who lost her husband to cancer last year, asked the Leever Center if she could quilt there and give the quilts to the patients. She advertised for her first meeting, and 25 people showed up. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said, adding that by last December the group had already made 107 quilts, and as of last week the group was at 181 quilts that have been handmade by local citizens. In September, Van Steenbergen branched out the group and started offering meetings in Bristol at the main library, in addition to meeting at the Leever Center, and another facility in Naugatuck. About 95 percent of all the fabric [...]