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Community Outreach ProjectsBedford Babies - at Bedford Hills Correctional FacilityBedford Hills Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, NY is a maximum security prison for women. Within the facility, there is a very special program called The Children’s Center for inmates who are pregnant upon incarceration and are serving short sentences for lesser crimes, usually drug-related. These inmates are housed in a separate building from the “general population” and are allowed to keep their babies with them until the age of 12 – 18 months, at which point the mother has completed her sentence and they both go home. The mothers attend classes in parenting, vocation, GED; some are beginning college classes. Our quilting program is called “Bedford Babies”. Five of our members volunteer at The Children’s Center teaching the mothers to make quilts for their babies. Many mothers are bitten by the quilting bug and progress to larger and more elaborate quilts. Scissors are not allowed within the Center, so other Guild members pre-cut fabric for the quilts. The mothers at the Center have made well over one thousand quilts in the nine years that we have been involved.
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