About

Photo courtesy of Rotaplast

Comfort quilts, created by quilters from all 50 states and several foreign countries, are gathered in Maine and then packaged to ship with medical missions.

Photo courtesy of Rotaplast

Boothbay Harbor Rotarian Dr. Ann Demeranville currently manages the project from Rotary District 7780 in Maine.  Wrap-A-Smile was started by Terry Hodskins of the Wells Maine Rotary Club and to date over 24,700 hand-made cotton quilts have been shared around the world.  Initially colorful children’s quilts were given to babies and children undergoing cleft lip and cleft palate repair provided by Rotaplast volunteer surgeons. As the program expanded Wrap-A-Smile was able to share quilts with Alliance for Smiles and Thousand Smiles, both Rotary-related surgical missions which also provide cleft lip and cleft palate repair. Additionally, quilts have been shared with other Rotary-related medical missions such as wheelchairs in Africa, hospitals in Nigeria and Uganda, and Ronald McDonald Houses locally.

Photo courtesy of Sunshine Online Quilt Guild

Community collaboration helps make this project successful. Quilters at the Boothbay Community Center sew for Wrap-A-Smile and also help label the quilts. Kwiltz 4 Kids of Boothbay Harbor share their quilts and a team of local volunteers meet at our Rotary clubhouse to vacuum pack the quilts when they are ready for shipment to the medical teams. Future plans call for the clubhouse to be used for community “Quiltathons” to benefit Wrap-A-Smile.

If you would like to help with this international goodwill project, contact Ann at quilts7780@gmail.com