Chuck McCumber pointed to a quilting display while strolling through the Sacramento State Fair two decades ago. He turned to his wife Michelle and said, "I think you can do that."
Michelle didn’t feel the same initially, but gave it a try and eventually became hooked on it.
Watch NBC Bay Area News free wherever you are
WATCH HERE“It’s form and function altogether. You're being creative. It's a piece of art and it functions. It's fabulous,” Michelle said.
Quilting remained just a hobby for many years for Michelle until, one day, it turned into a mission. It was in 2015 that she witnessed her first Quilts of Valor presentation. Quilts of Valor is a nationwide organization in which quilters create custom quilts with patriotic themes to be given to a veteran as a way of saying, “Thank you for your service.”
After seeing the ceremony, Michelle was deeply touched. She turned to Chuck and said, “This is what I'd like to do.”
Michelle knows firsthand through Chuck, a veteran of the Vietnam War, how important it is for veterans to be recognized and appreciated in a public setting.
Michelle and Chuck met in the late 1970s when they both worked for the California Department of Forestry (now Cal Fire). They had been together two years before Chuck revealed to Michelle that he served in Vietnam.
Local
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news with the Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
SIGN UP “A lot of Vietnam veterans had to learn how to fly low under the radar,” Michelle said. “An awful lot of hate was generated towards the veterans from Vietnam. They just didn't talk about it.”
Over the years, Michelle helped Chuck recover from the horrors that still haunted him. She knew what receiving a Quilt of Valor would mean to him, and likely many other veterans.
A member of the Amador Valley Quilting Guild, Michelle now heads up their local chapter of Quilts of Valor. The organization has over the years given out more than 800 quilts.
Every Monday, Michelle can be found at the Livermore Veterans Memorial creating, stitching, cutting, and sewing quilts with a team of other women, all the while planning future presentations.
Each quilt takes as many as 60 hours to create but becomes an instant heirloom once in the hands of the veteran.
“When you allow people to work from their heart, beauty is created and that is the love of it," Michelle said. "They're creating love."
