EDMONTON -- For the past 24 years, an Edmonton-area nurse has been providing a special type of comfort for Canadians dealing with mental illness by donating quilts to them.
Through her Blankets of Love program, Sheila Ethier has either collected or made 3,500 quilts to hand out to hospitals for mental health patients since 1996.
Mental illness is a topic Ethier knows all too well.
"From the years 1994 to 2005, I was in and out of the hospital many times for treatment of depression and PTSD," Ethier told CTV News Edmonton.
In 1996, Ethier found refuge in a quilt.
"One day I came home and came across a quilt my grandmother had made for me and I covered myself with it and immediately felt this sense of love and warmth," she said.
Ethier decided that a sense of love and warmth was something she wanted to share with others who were also dealing with mental illness.
"To offer that symbol, or that gesture from the community," she said. "A person makes a quilt, donates it to a patient in hospital and it lets that person know that, 'OK, we understand that you're not well. We'll give you this blanket, we love you.'"
Recently Ethier found new motivation to churn out her quilts.
Two years ago, her son Brandon Ethier was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
"The last year was really hard," said Brandon. "I had thoughts of not wanting to live anymore, you know, suicidal thoughts."
He's being treated at Alberta Hospital and says new medication seems to be helping.
Now his mother has a new goal for her Blankets of Love: She's working to gather 300 quilts to give to her son's fellow patients at Alberta Hospital.
"I really think that having a nicer warm quilt is more comforting," said Brandon Ethier.
The warm-hearted initiative that has already helped so many, now has come full circle. An idea of caring that Brandon Ethier can relate to.
"If everybody could just take care of each other, love each other, I think the world needs that right now."
