CARTERET &mdash Looking forward to a trip to the nation’s capital, Jeane Lutz woke up at 3:30 a.m.
on March 2 to a snowstorm that she knew would likely delay the arrival of her Amtrak train, scheduled for 5 a.m. out of Metropark. Sure enough, the train arrived about a half-hour late. But in better-late-than-never fashion, Lutz at long last arrived in Washington, D.C., that day with a pair of stuffed bags of handmade quilts which would be distributed to injured veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars at Walter Reed Military Hospital. Unfortunately, Lutz — the owner of Country Quilt n Threads, an online quilting materials store &hellip never got to hand out the quilts herself because of the storm. But Lutz did catch up with Carteret Mayor Daniel Reiman and U.S. Rep. Albio Sires in Sires’ office in Washington, D.C. At the office, Lutz left the bags with 1st Sgt. Quin Waterman, who said he would deal out all 25 quilts within a couple of weeks, Lutz said. Lutz, who is in her mid-60s, said she decided to organize this event because of the images she saw when she was younger. “I thought we needed to address the wounded soldiers who had recently returned for war,” said Lutz, a 16-year resident of Carteret. “I’m of the age in which I saw people return from Vietnam many years ago, and I was not happy with the response they got.”
The quilts are the result of a program Lutz called “Quilts for Returning Injured Soldiers.” She said the program has attracted a number of area volunteers — most of whom are customers — to donate their time to make quilts for charity purposes.