The Rugby Chamber of Commerce awarded the First Lutheran Church Quilters its monthly Volunteer Award to recognize the hard work each member of the group puts into each quilt.

This year, the group made more than 200 quilts to be given to local residents and donated to Lutheran World Relief. ThRelief program disperseds the quilts where needed.

The quilters gathered Monday morning to box up the quilts they made over their last quilting season, which runs from autumn through the Easter season.

Pam Anderson, chairperson for the club, said their quilts have been sent to disaster areas in the United States and even overseas to the Ukraine. She said not all of the quilts get shipped out. The group makes quilts for high school seniors who are graduating, new babies born in the parish and are given to local families who experience disasters. They also donate quilts for raffles for entities to raise money and to inmates at the Heart River Correctional Center, Mandan.

Each week the group of about 20 makes around 50 quilts, an impressive feat that can only be accomplished through teamwork. Each week members take to stations where they work on one step of the quilting process such as sewing, pinning and tying the blankets together.

Member of nearly 50 years, Audrey Michelanko, started quilting in 1973 while her father was in the hospital. She was only able to see him for 15 minutes at a time so to keep herself busy in the waiting room she started cutting squares.

Michelanko said she keeps coming back to quilt every year because it gets her out of the house and keeps her learning new things.

Longtime member Jan Norsby said the shared love for the craft and the sense of community it provides is what keeps her coming back. “Fellowship is important. Some of these people we would not have a connection with other than this,” she said.