On Nov. 10 the members of Needle Nellies, Quilters on the Divide, met to celebrate their annual Thanksgiving Potluck. This highly anticipated meeting was the culmination of almost two years of work making and marketing the annual opportunity quilt crafted by the group for the sole purpose of raising funds for the Georgetown Volunteer Fire Department. This year’s quilt went on the road October of 2021 to many public venues including the Placerville Home Show, the Mandarin Festival, regional quilt shops, many supportive quilter’s guild meetings as well as the Garden Valley People’s Mountain Market and Georgetown Founder’s Day. The drawing for the winning ticket was Sept. 25 this year, and the final income from the ticket sales has been tallied.
On Nov. 10 the check was presented to Georgetown Fire Department Captain, Keith Harston, for the amount of $7,000. In spite of the evacuation of Georgetown, due to the Mosquito Fire, which cancelled the annual Quilt Show, the generosity of the community and extra donations from other quilt groups boosted the earnings to make this the largest donation the Nellies have been able to make in the 20 plus years they have been shouldering the opportunity quilt program. As President Candy Brown has observed, over the years the leadership of the group sought a way to make a donation that would impact the greatest number of people in the community. Rescue and fire protection seemed a universal need that all benefit from. The Georgetown Fire Department has been a very gracious beneficiary, and the funds have been put to good use, enabling them to develop a world-class training center, equip the volunteers, and shelter equipment the department owns. This year as we consider the harrowing fight our firefighters engaged in saving our community from the blow up of the Mosquito Fire, the support for the Fire Departments appears to be ever more vital.
