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We have been asked to help Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains with several items in assistance of patient care. 

 

First, we were asked if there is a reusable solution for patient care bags that would offer some happiness, dignity and discretion for patients leaving clinic with medication and materials and resources after medical appointments.

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Second, The Pocket Heart Hugs will be added to their resource pack given to patients with after their appointments. Prior to distribution, our laminated poem will be added to the Heart Hug by Martha.

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Third, patients are advised to use a heating pad after certain appointments to help with cramping. Many patients can't afford this. However a rice heating pad made out of flannel holds it's heat for up to an hour! 

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To start off, we are partnering with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to help their affiliates in Northern Colorado. (Boulder, Fort Collins, Greeley and Northern Denver). If we get enough volunteer help, they would love assistance with all of their clinics in their entire service area covering all of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. We have not reached that level of help, so for now we continue to just offer assistance in Northern Colorado. 

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1) Tote Bags-

• Any pattern, any style. Preferred Pattern: The Crafting Change Easy Tote, Green Bag Lady, Crafting Change Taco Tote or Earth Day Jean Tote.

• Lined or unlined.

• Quilting Cotton, cotton/poly blends, Lightweight Canvas or denim

• Sized between 16"x16" and 18"x18"

• Bright and cheerful fabrics like Superheroes, Florals, batiks in bright colors or denim jeans totes.

• Fabrics to Avoid:

  • Pastels. 

  • Baby Prints

  • Fabrics with words like mommy/daddy/family

  • Drugs/Alcohol/Bad Words/Inappropriate Images

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2) Pocket Heart Hugs - These are the same as our Pocket Prayer Quilts but are made with only hearts and no religious symbols. Bright and cheerful Heart Hugs. Same fabric restrictions as the tote bags. You can see our video below on how to construct them or follow any pattern you find for "pocket prayer quilts" however we are only using hearts, no religious emblems allowed. Carol Grape and Deb Evans found a fun new way to do these with pinking shears, and we've now added a video for this to our patterns! 

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3) Rice Bag Heating Pads - These small flannel heating pads are super fast and easy to sew up. Our team on the ground in Colorado will fill them up with rice and sew them closed, so all you have to do is create the empty shells following our super easy pattern and video tutorial created by Carol Grape carol@craftingchange.org    Please remember to use COTTON THREAD! These will go inside the patient totes we are crafting along with the heart hugs and given to patients to offer them additional comfort to help alleviate cramping and pain. As the women served in this region are primarily low-income PPRM often has to provide financial assistance to patients to purchase heating pads however their funds are low due to increase requests to cover travel expenses of patients. This little item will go a long way to help. Rice is being provided by volunteers in Colorado.