STARKVILLE — When you think of both nurses and quilts, you think of comfort.

At least, according to Tim Gordon, Mississippi liaison for healthcare performance improvement company Vizient, who spoke Wednesday, after presenting a group of OCH Regional Medical Center nurses with a “Quilt of Honor.”

“When you think about quilts, they’re comforting, and that’s kind of a symbol of recognition for (nurses) and the comfort they provided during the pandemic,” Gordon said. “ … We appreciate the work that our members do every day, but especially during the pandemic.”

Vizient President and CEO Bill Senneff told the story of the quilt’s creation as a part of the Solidarity Quilt Block Project.

“QUILTmania is an international quilting group based in France,” Senneff said. “Towards the end of the pandemic, they came together and said they wanted to do something to recognize all of the caregivers … who helped through this very, very difficult time.”

QUILTmania, a quilting book and magazine publishing company based in France, organized a group of more than 1,000 international quilters to create 10-inch red and pink blocks. These blocks were then collected from quilters in Canada, Mexico, the United States, Australia and more.

The blocks were then sent to the QUILTmania office in Marietta, Georgia, where two members of the Chattahoochee Evening Stars Quilt Guild, based out of Alpharetta, Georgia, were given the blocks to piece together into 18 small quilts. The guild completed the quilts, and then put them on display in Alpharetta City Hall, where they have been displayed for the last two months.

When the quilts were being taken down from the City Hall display, Senneff’s former executive assistant reached out and let him know about the opportunity to distribute the quilts to Vizient members. Senneff reached out to QUILTmania, who gave approval for the quilts to be distributed, with two conditions.

“The two things that the folks from France asked as we’re doing this,” Senneff said. “ … Number one, how much they appreciate what all you have done – and we appreciate what all of you have done for your patients, your community and really, for society. And number two, they asked that it be displayed publicly within your organization, so the general public can know how much you all mean to us.”

Gloria Boyd, Chief Nursing Officer for OCH Regional Medical Center, said she and her team were honored and grateful for the recognition from Vizient. She agrees nurses and quilts have comfort in common. Boyd said the quilt will be displayed at the west highway entrance to the hospital, where everyone who comes into the hospital can see it.

“It brings comfort,” Boyd said. “It brings comfort to our patients and it will bring comfort to this facility knowing that we provided the best care to the patients while the COVID season was here. We’ll hang it so they can see that when they come into our facility and know we comfort them in their time of need.”