When Patricia Leach, extension agent in Indiana County, asked area residents to create a quilted wall hanging and write a short statement explaining the intent of their artwork’s imagery, she found herself investing a lot of emotion into the project. “I remember typing up these stories late at night and the tears would just be rolling down my cheeks,” she says. “We asked that people create these pieces to reflect on a personal experience with cancer, to honor a cancer survivor, or to commemorate a person who had died of cancer.”

Leach started the project as part of the Northern Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer (NALIC). Every quilt incorporated a pink ribbon into the design, and women of any age and skill level could submit quilts. “We had quilts from women of all ages, two high school youth groups, and one seven-year-old,” Leach says.

Leach started the quilting project in 1998 after seeing a similar project from Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Delaware County, New York office at a national Appalachian Cancer Network meeting in Hershey.

She organized the first exhibit in May 1999, displaying 42 quilts at sites in eight area communities. After the traveling exhibition ended, a silent auction of the quilts netted $3,000 for the Indiana County Cancer Coalition. The funds are being used to provide educational programs on environmental risk factors for cancer, free quilting classes, and special outreach to Amish women and other medically underserved or uninsured populations.

This year, Barbara Miller, extension agent in Elk County, used Leach’s model to organize the Pink Ribbon Millennium Quilt Project, a similar traveling exhibition in communities in and around Elk County. Miller’s project also features an auction to raise funds for several cancer-related organizations in Elk County.

“Working with the arts is a new and growing field for those involved in health care and health education, and for cooperative extension to take this on is a unique and creative approach,” explains Ann Ward, regional program director of the Appalachian Cancer Network and a contributing quilter. “Using traditional arts to spread educational messages reinforces the important role of women’s networking and creativity, and reaches into every strata of the community.”

Leach is preparing another exhibition this year, which will be displayed at sites in Indiana County. Next year, extension agents in Greene County plan to organize a quilt project, Leach says. Selected quilts from Elk and Indiana Counties also were exhibited at the National Rural Women’s Health Initiative conference, held in August in Washington, D.C.

“The educational message of the project is that women have to take responsibility for their own health,” Miller says. “At minimum, every woman should get mammograms and clinical exams each year, and perform monthly breast self-exams.”

—John Wall