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09/10/04 3:06 AM

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Needlepoint Lighthouse Christmas Tree

Enclosed please find 95 needlepoint lighthouse ornaments for your lighthouse decorated tree to benefit the American Lighthouse Foundation. This is a donation from American Needlepoint Guild (ANG) members from “sea to shining sea.” I will be sending about a dozen more next week, as a few people are late in getting their ornaments to me. That will bring our donation to over 100 ornaments, which was my personal goal.

A member of our local ANG Chapter, Frances Hansen, suggested that we participate in your project after reading about your request in the April issue of Lighthouse Digest. While our chapter could make a nice contribution, I suspected that there are lighthouse lovers all over this country who would be interested in participating in this project if they only knew about it. So began the Housatonic Valley Chapter’s “Save the Lights” Charity Project. I contacted 65 ANG members in coastal areas, both ocean and Great Lakes, thinking that I could find interested members. I also put a message on an Internet discussion list for ANG members. What a wonderful response I received! I had needlepoint canvas designer, Anne Stradal, from Texas donated 22 painted lighthouse ornament canvases to our cause. We have received 95 ornaments from 75 people in 19 states.

Each ornament represents between 1 and 20 hours of labor and anywhere from $10 to $50 worth of materials. It is obvious that many ANG members have a strong desire to help preserve our lighthouses as historic sites.

I suggested that everyone stitch a lighthouse from their locale if possible. Many people did this, however, many talented people designed their own imagined lighthouse ornaments and stitched them. I am so impressed with the diversity of everyone’s efforts.

Every member that has participated will receive a lighthouse pin, I am including one with this letter, to commemorate their contribution and thank them for their participation. ANG members wear name tags to meetings and events and like to display their collection of pins on their name tags. (This pin features a lighthouse with the words “Save the Lights” and around the outside it says, “I stitched a lighthouse ornament for the American Lighthouse Foundation.”

Please let me know when and where the auction of this tree will take place, as I would like to attend the event. I hope to write an article about this project for our organization’s publication, NeedlePointers, so I would like to be appraised of the results of our collective efforts.

Joni B. Stevenson

Editor’s Comments :

This was totally unexpected and came as a great surprise to us. You should see the ornaments, they are outstanding and everyone is a work of art! Now, if we could only get the national media to pick up on this story and get even more ornaments donated, we could have a very unique auction and fund-raiser by auctioning off a gigantic tree with donated lighthouse needlepoint ornaments! Many thanks to all those who helped with this project, they are to all to be commended for helping the lighthouse cause.

Mountain Lighthouse

Just when you think there’s no possible was to see a lighthouse, one just appears! Recently, while attending a family wedding in Denver, CO, we saw a lighthouse just off the ramp from I-70. Of course, before we left the area, we had to investigate. We found this lighthouse is actually in Golden Colorado and is the office for “Storage at the lighthouse.” The site manager very graciously allowed us to look around and showed us the huge fisherman that he had a local woodworker fashion into a statue. Believe it or not, there was even a copy of the “Lighthouse Depot Catalog” in the office. We think we must have found one of the highest lighthouse facsimiles around, since this one’s elevation is approximately 5500 feet above sea level.

Dennis & Gayle Stemac

San Antonio, FL

This story appeared in the October 2002 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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