YELLOWKNIFE - Cathy Miller, a singer/songwriter inspired by quilts once wrote, "I do not know your name, nor the mountains you face, but what you hold in your arms is a quilters embrace."

Barb Round, kneeling, donated a quilt to Dayle Handy with the Bailey House project to help add a personal touch to the transient home, set to be built by Fall of this year. With no furnishings secured yet for the house, Round is hoping the community will follow suit in helping make the Bailey House a home. - Christine Grimard/NNSL photo

Barb Round printed the verse on a handmade single-bed quilt she donated to the Bailey House project.

She said that quilts are a message of warmth and comfort, which is why she's asking other quilters to do the same.

The Bailey House is a planned transitional house for homeless men to be built in Fall 2007.

While the construction of the house has been covered by various private and government organizations, Dayle Handy of the Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition said the house still lacks some essential elements such as furniture, landscaping, and an elevator to name a few.

Round, who recently retired and was looking to help out in the community, went to a coalition meeting and saw that there was still lots of ways for citizens to get involved with the project.

As an avid quilter, Round said that making a quilt for a bed was a tangible way for her to contribute.

"It's a heartwarming contribution," said Handy about Round's donation. "I see it [the Bailey House] as a community energy, a grassroots project. Each person can contribute and it doesn't have to take a lot of money."

Handy and Round are now hoping that other quilters will come forward to help cover the 32 beds in the home.

As each room is set to be a cookie-cutter image of the other, Handy said that the individual blankets help residents make their rooms feel more like a home.

Round is hoping that other people will follow suit in providing this kind of personal donation to the Bailey House project.

She has approached other quilters, and said that one or two other blankets are already on the way.

For non-quilters out there, any citizen with a passion could contribute something original to the home. For example, Round envisioned shop class students building lamps for the rooms.

Handy has also made an application to the Blankets for Canada Society, a non-profit organization devoted to creating blankets for Canadians in need.

A quilter herself, she is also considering organizing a weekend quilting blitz to make more covers for the home.

With only single-bed quilts needed, Round noted that this is a great chance to motivate quilters with partly finished projects to wrap them up for a good cause.

Once built, the facility will include 29 suites where low income male tenants can live while paying a small amount of rent until they're ready to move into homes of their own. The men will have graduated from either existing Salvation Army life skill programs or those returning from addictions treatment centres in Hay River or in the south. The facility is expected to cost around $3 million.