Linda McGinnis took up quilting around the same time doctors told her she had breast cancer. Eleven years ago during a routine mammogram, a physician at the Saint Louise Regional Hospital Breast Care Center found a lump. Doctors said the cancer invaded her lymph nodes and would have spread to her brain, bones and throughout her body had they caught it any later.
“They saved my life,” said McGinnis, 59, a retired San Jose State University administrator who lives in Gilroy with her husband. “It was remarkable that the radiologist picked it up.”
Her brush with cancer makes her quilting all the more meaningful, especially when it comes to a fundraiser held by her colleagues in the Piece by Piece Quilt Guild of Morgan Hill. Every year, McGinnis and her group of avid stitchers create a quilt to display at various South County businesses, community centers and other venues and events, like the Taste of Morgan Hill, to get people to buy donation raffle tickets from now through October.
This year’s piece is a modern style quilt made up of greens, reds, yellows, pinks and a floral stripe fabric. The group stitched the finishing touches at McGinnis’ house – 10 of them gathered around the kitchen counter island, each one sewing their own part of the piecework throw, each one with some connection to cancer, whether through a friend or relative’s diagnosis or their own.
Through a random drawing, the winner gets the quilt and the proceeds go to the Saint Louise Breast Care Center – the same one that saved McGinnis’ life.
“It’s a very worthy cause,” said Noni Gamino, 64, a Gilroy resident and another member of the quilt guild. “Most of us have breasts – I mean some of us don’t, obviously – but it’s important to do our part to help the hospital to diagnose and treat cancer.”
About 150 women and some men make up the regional quilt guild. Together, they sew quilts in a range of styles, from traditional to modern, practical to artistic. A few years back, the guild raised some $5,000 for the clinic – a record the group hopes to beat this year.
A quilt shop owner from Morgan Hill started the guild in 1988, originally calling it the Hearthside Hearts and Hands. The club used to meet in each other’s homes to quilt, exchange ideas and socialize. Four years later, they had grown enough to look for another place to meet – somewhere affordable and local. Saint Louise opened its doors to the guild, letting them meet in a room in the breast care clinic, free of charge.
“We wanted to find a way to thank them,” Gamino said. “So the group donated a quilt to the hospital to thank them for their generosity.”
That was in 1998. Since then, the guild has stitched together quilts for the Rebekkah Children’s Home, Community Solutions and the Morgan Hill Community Action Group, among others. The guild now has regular meetings at the Presbyterian Church of Morgan Hill, where they hold lectures, workshops and ice cream socials.
The quilt for raising money for the Saint Louise Breast Care Center, however, always comes with a cash donation from the fundraiser. Proceeds over the years have paid for mammograms for low-income patients, staff training, educational tapes, other services aimed to screen and treat breast cancer, and new equipment at the clinic, where one of the quilt guild’s creations is proudly displayed.
McGinnis decorates her own two-story, west Gilroy home with quilts she and her peers made – Christmas quilts still hang on her wall.
“I’m really into decorating,” said the crafter, who took up quilting when she was 5. “When I found out I had cancer, I didn’t have the energy to do this. You could tell I wasn’t well.”
McGinnis took the news bravely, all considered, and feels lucky oncologists caught her cancer early enough that she avoided chemo. A six-week radiation course and some light surgery cleaned up the cancer that permeated her lymphatic system. The cancer has been in remission ever since.
“I was a healthy person before and I’m still a healthy person,” McGinnis said. “I suppose I could say it was a scary thing, but more than that it’s a reminder to regularly get your mammogram to catch it early.”
What: Quilt auction fundraiser for Saint Louise Regional Hospital Breast Care Center
When: Through October
Where: Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Juan Bautista
Details: piecebypiecequiltguild.com
