‘A piece of something bigger’: Makers help raise fabric of community with Union Station quilt project

A trio of Kansas City maker businesses wove together their talents this spring in support of a new, local health initiative — culminating in a towering expression of hope and healing at Union Station.

Ampersand Design Studio, Tia Curtis Quilts, and Collective EX spent the past three weeks designing, fabricating, and displaying a colorful quilt and exhibit for RaisingKC. The new bi-state public health campaign is focused on the No. 1 way to prevent toxic stress in children: a safe, stable, nurturing relationship between an adult and a child.

According to organizers with the Raised with Love and Limits Foundation — which was founded by Barb and Bob Unell — the RaisingKC quilt depicts the moments and people who help create a safe, stable, and nurturing community.

Michele Dawbarn, Collective EX, helps construct a large-scale rainbow as part of the RaisingKC display at Union Station; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

The exhibit — built by the team at Collective EX — will be on display through June 16 at Union Station.

It’s humbling to be part of a community project like the just-unveiled display, said Johnny Dawbarn, co-founder of Collective Ex along with his wife, Michele.

“The description of the project resonated with us right away because we have kids,” he explained. “However, you don’t really get a deep dive into it until you’re part of it and you start hearing about all the people, all the steps that have been taken to get to this point. It really just makes you feel like you’re a piece of something bigger. That’s always an honor.”

KCMO Mayor Quinton Lucas, KCK Mayor Tyrone Garner, and Johnson County Commission Board Chair Mike Kelly each have declared June as RaisingKC month within their areas of the Kansas City region, organizers noted.

Toxic stress is a root cause of so many urgent mental, behavioral, and medical health crises of our time, according to the Raised with Love and Limits Foundation.

“When you get into just the science of safe, stable, nurturing relationships with kids, it’s a cheat code for our community,” Kelly said. “All the things that we’re trying to either prevent or the things that we’re reacting from — like the mental health issues that we’ve seen exacerbated in our community — the No. 1 way we can impact the next generation from those challenges is these relationships.”

Click here to check out RaisingKC for helpful tools and organizations dedicated to helping everyone build safe, stable, nurturing adult-child relationships.

Union Station board member Bob Regnier speak during a ceremony for the RaisingKC display at Union Station; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

This week marked what is likely the first time Union Station has hosted a quilt raising, shared President and CEO George Guastello — who was joined by Kelly, the Unells, Kansas City Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, Union Station board member Bob Regnier, and the artists and makers Tuesday at an unveiling ceremony.

Union Station President and CEO George Guastello at Union Station; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

“When you think about the fabric of our community, what a better place than Union Station,” Guastello continued. “When you talk about fabric and how we engage, everyone has a piece in our life. Each piece tells a story.”

“So when we think about the quilt, it wraps us and keeps us warm and keeps us comfortable,” he added.

Even though she worked on the quilt for three weeks, Tia Curtis — who crafted it based on the designs of Ampersand’s Carrie Kiefer and Morgan Georgie — said Tuesday was the first time she saw the quilt in its entirety. 

“I have a big machine, but it wasn’t big enough to see the whole quilt,” she explained. “It’s really amazing. Everything just fell together perfectly.”