Blanketing the Community in Warmth

On a Friday morning in mid-December, nurses and other staff from Cleveland Clinic’s main campus loaded more than 1,500 fleece blankets into a box truck for delivery to the Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry Men’s Shelter. It was the culmination of the annual blanket drive organized by the Nursing Institute’s Care Management Department.

“For people who don’t have a place to stay in the shelter or don’t want to stay in the shelter, these blankets are extraordinarily practical and much desired,” says Kris Adams, MSN, CNP, ACNO of Care Management and Ambulatory Services at Cleveland Clinic. “These aren’t pretty quilts you put on a bed. They help homeless people survive.”

Project grows year-to-year

In 2012, Mary Beth Modic, DNP, RN, CNS, CDE, a clinical nurse specialist in diabetes, organized the first blanket drive, with nurses from several units making and donating approximately 100 blankets. The annual community service project has grown every year since then. In 2017, nurse collected more than 1,000 blankets. In 2018, the figure skyrocketed to 1,644 blankets.

“I credit the success to the fact that it’s a great cause,” says Adams, who took over coordination of the blanket drive in 2017. “Nurses aren’t going out, buying something and bringing it in. People use it like a team-building activity. They bring in the material, put on Christmas music and the whole team starts tying these blankets.”

Generating excitement for the blanket drive

The blanket drive kicks off at the end of October, when Kelly Hancock, DNP, RN, NE-BC, Executive Chief Nursing Officer of Cleveland Clinic, announces the project and sends out instructions for making the 6 x 6-foot blankets. The process is simple: You stack two fleece panels together, cut about three inches into the edges all around the panels, then tie the fringes together to connect the panels.

Nurses throughout the Cleveland Clinic health system, from main campus to regional hospitals and family health centers, make blankets throughout November. Care Management begins collecting and storing them the Friday after Thanksgiving. On Dec. 14, 2018, a team of nurses delivered blankets to the men’s shelter, where they were treated to a thank-you luncheon.

Providing more than a warm blanket

The blankets include an extra touch: Information on free health screenings at Cleveland Clinic’s Langston Hughes Community Health and Education Center is tucked inside each one. “Because the blankets are donated to a men’s shelter, we focus on men’s health and wellness – prostate exams, urology exams and colonoscopies,” says Adams. The flier also includes information on free transportation from the shelter to the health center.

Adams says the blanket drive is an extension of the care that nurses provide. “Every day our nurses interact with patients who have all kinds of needs that are unmet. The nurses are there to meet medical needs and support the patients’ health and well-being, but there is much more to it,” she says. “The hardest thing in the world is to discharge a homeless patient. You are sending them out with no place to stay. The nurses see these blankets as a small way to help.”