Some of you might have seen the Facebook post the other day but if not, I am so very pleased to share that Aussie Hero Quilts has partnered with Defence Community Dogs to make the Stay Mats that they use for their dogs.
Defence Community Dogs program provides, at no cost, highly trained Assistance Dogs to both serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force (ADF) members, who need physical and emotional support for mood, depressive and anxiety disorders; including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Defence Community Dogs is improving the lives of Veterans. One paw at time.
Every time a dog is given to a veteran they go with a Stay Mat. When the dog goes out with the handler they are trained to sit on their mat. That becomes their spot!
DCD was having trouble finding someone to make the mats they needed and when one of our recipients received her dog she thought that perhaps we could help. Once I looked into what was required it just seemed like a really good fit and something else that we could do to help veterans easily.
We have made the first ten mats and you can see one of them in the photo. Leanne, the CEO of DCD sent us a stay mat to work from and we used that as a pattern. We had to buy specific fabrics for the mats as patchwork fabric is not serviceable enough. Initially the Garage Girls who sew from my home, will make the first couple of batches of Stay Mats and after that I hope we can make a batch that can be used as patterns. I have already had expressions of interest from a couple of other volunteers who would like to make these but until we have a few extra Stay Mats available as patterns we can't share the load. I hope we will be able to by the end of the year.
In the mean time, if you want to support us making these to help our Veterans who need dogs, please feel free to get on board and donate a small amount of money to help us purchase the fabric.
Just contact me for details.
Till next time... happy stitching and keep spreading the word.
Jan-Maree xx
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