Palmas Del Sol Bee 2023

October 21, 2023 – clear skies – ☀️ 97°

We celebrated double digit high temps and ushered in cooler weather with a delicious soup luncheon at our Palmas Del Sol Bee. Our hosts provided a variety of sweet treats and coffee in the morning and a “souper” spread for lunch.

This Bee is always a special treat for several reasons. One is the timing. We’ve made it through the dog days of summer, we’ve gone several months without a Bee, and we’re ready to see all your wonderful faces again! Another tradition we anticipate is a visit from volunteer, Carol Pettis. She sews throughout the year and makes one amazing delivery of blankets at this October Bee. We celebrate with a parade of them around the room (70 blankets this year)! It’s so much fun to see all the beautiful prints she uses. Thank you, Carol, for another phenomenal donation!

The hive was buzzing with 56 worker Bees on this day (including a dozen AZ Blankets 4 Kids Board members). We had a swarm of winners! Joyce McKee of Palmas Del Sol won our bountiful basket of goodies, curated and presented by Letty Fowell. Please check out the photos below. I took many of Joyce, and every single one features the most mischievous grin! Our next winner was Kathy Bauhaus of TowerPoint. She’s going shopping at Mad B’s with a $25 gift certificate. AZ Blankets 4 Kids purchases these gift certificates to treat our volunteers, but also to show our gratitude for the local quilt shops that serve as drop-off locations for your blanket donations. The cool cash prize of the day put $77 in Bunny June Meloni’s pocket from our 50/50 drawing. We sell 50/50 tickets at each Bee. After lunch, when we hold our drawings, the total income from those tickets is split in half and shared between the lucky ticket holder and our fantastic Bee host group. We had one extra bonus giveaway, donated by local hair stylist, Becky Horne (A#1 Hair Salon, 6144 E Main, Mesa (480) 206-4884). Sue Jacoby was our winner of a $45 haircut and style.

By the numbers, we had 74 blankets donated at the door (thanks to the 70 quilts from Carol Pettis) and 24 blankets completed at the Bee, for a grand total of 98 blankets that were delivered to our kids! Great work everyone!