Photo: Contributed

A group of quilters from the Okanagan are providing some comfort in the name of Humboldt.

Carol Cooney has been helping facilitate the effort to send dozens of lap quilts to Humboldt. Those quilts will be given to the people left in the wake of the tragedy. 

"I am just one of a million people who are doing this," says Cooney. "That #quiltsforbroncos initiative has gone viral." 

Quilts will be made for everyone who was on the bus, for the staff and billets affected, the first responders, hospital personnel and anyone associated with the tragedy.

There is a group of roughly 60 quilters from Kelowna, Vernon, Salmon Arm and Enderby who are stitching together a specific pattern requested, made up of the Humboldt Broncos colours — gold, green, white and black.  

Those pieces will be sent to Saskatchewan where they will be assembled and the Broncos logo will be stitched onto the back.

Quilters from across Canada have joined the initiative, which was started by Haus of Stitches, a sewing haberdashery in Humboldt.

A guild in Ontario has already sent 700 quilts to Humboldt.

"Quilters rise to the call," says Cooney. She says over the years similar initiatives have been created for disasters like the Fort McMurry wildfires, flooding in Alberta, even the Tsunami in Japan.

Cooney says hundreds of thousands of quilts have been made and donated over the years by quilters for a number of causes.

They will be holding a sewing day on May 3 at the quilt shop in Armstrong, Pleasant Valley Quilting.

"Whatever quilt tops, which is the just the top, is not together by that day we'll have sort of a fun day of sweatshop sewing to sew them together," Cooney says with a slight chuckle.

Cooney says they will be sending roughly 30 quilts to Humboldt.

On April 6 a semi truck and the bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos hockey team collided on a Saskatchewan highway. Sixteen people died in the crash, several more remain in hospital.