From The Billings Gazette (MT):
Chris Jones teaches a new knot to her daughter, Ashley, as they tie a quilt at the eighth annual Hearts and Hands service day at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Stake Center at 2929 Belvedere Drive in Billings on Saturday.
The 5-foot-high mound of backpacks gets to the center of Hearts and Hands service day.
The backpacks are stuffed with items that will help make life a little easier for the dozens of homeless teens who receive them. The backpacks have been available through Hearts and Hands for only a few years, but once the volunteers at the event realized they were needed, more have been donated and they have been filled fuller each year.
The backpacks and items in them - including a fleece blanket and hand-knitted hat, school supplies and a hygiene kit - were donated from church members throughout the Billings area. They were given to the Angel Fund, which distributes them to kids in need.
More than 300 of those church members, women from congregations with varying doctrines but with the common goal of helping others, gathered Saturday in the eighth annual Hearts and Hands community service day. They shared fellowship, food and fun, all the while sewing and assembling items to help people in need.
Dozens of “friendship baskets” lined one wall of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Stake Center on Belvedere Drive. The large, colorful gift sacks included a full meal of a canned entrée, fruit and a dessert mix along with a stuffed animal or two for children in the families they would feed. (cont.)