Mission’s 125th anniversary quilt is set to be preserved as the Lifetime Learning Centre wraps up its final semester.
To commemorate the landmark anniversary in 2017, local organizations provided patches for the Lifetime Learning Centre to stitch together into a quilt.
Some of those organizations no longer exist but the quilt has hung on the walls of the Lifetime Learning Centre in the years since.
“There were little bits of history here with each square,” Lifetime Learning Centre executive director Diana Muntigl said.
However, with the Lifetime Learning Centre shutting its doors this month, the quilt is moving to Mission Museum.
Like the centre itself, the quilt will become a part of Mission’s history.
“We’re glad it’s got a place,” Muntigl said. “Who knows what could happen in the future … and then it’s lost. You can’t recover something that’s in a flood or fire. I mean, it’s gone then. You don’t know what happens if it’s not preserved in a proper fashion. At least there’s a better chance of it sticking around and being preserved.”
Daphne Bakker first became involved with the Lifetime Learning Centre to help with the 125th-anniversary quilt. She volunteered to do the long-arming for the project and helped craft the quilt with fellow lifetime learner Phyllis Atkinson.
Bakker has been a part of the quilting program ever since, collaborating with Fraserview Learning Centre students. During its time, the Lifetime Learning Centre’s quilting program helped to stitch together generations.
“It became an intergenerational program after [the quilt] was completed. Our school here became very interested and the students started participating on a number of levels,” Muntigl said.
She says the quilting program fostered a lovely environment for both Fraserview students and lifetime learners.
The Lifetime Learning Centre’s outgoing president Karin Edberg-Lee says the quilting circle was a source of group therapy.
“It’s something they can actually do. [A quilt] is a virtual existence of their effort, their time, and their creativity. It’s an outlet,” Edberg-Lee said.
Moving forward, there’s no current place in the community that offers the same space for quilting.
“Unfortunately, that kind of community space is not around because you need designated space and expensive equipment,” Muntigl said.
Muntigl, Edberg-Lee, Bakker and Atkinson will all miss the quilting program and the Lifetime Learning Centre overall — especially the companionship it created.
“It’s been an incredibly creative endeavour. Aside from working, it’s been everything that you want in so many ways,” Muntigl said.
The Lifetime Learning Centre voted to dissolve in June and will officially close on Dec. 31.
“That tacit community pact where we all help each other when we can — well, we’ve gotten too big for that sort of thing now. It’s impossible,” Edberg-Lee said.
The centre is hopeful that the quilting program will continue in some form moving forward.
