FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. – What started as a deeply personal act of love has grown into a gift of comfort for dozens of families across Flagler County.
This week, Flagler Volunteer Services’ Blanketeers received an extraordinary donation — nearly 30 handcrafted fidget blankets, each uniquely designed to bring comfort, engagement, and familiarity to individuals living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. The donation, now being distributed to local assisted living and memory care facilities, is unlike anything the organization has seen before.
For creator Maria Tejera of Palm Coast, the project is rooted in family.
“I first started to make the blankets because my stepmother had Alzheimer’s, and both my mother and my stepfather have dementia,” Tejera said. “When my stepmother was struggling, I decided I was going to make a fidget blanket for her. Ironically and horribly, she passed before she got to enjoy it.”
That loss became a catalyst.
Rather than stop, Tejera kept sewing.
She spent more than 200 hours between May and mid-June crafting the blankets — pausing only for emergency surgery before returning to her work on her birthday, May 11.
But she’s quick to point out the blankets are not hers alone.
“This was not an activity that was all mine,” Tejera said. “This was a combination of the group that I’m with. They donated crocheted items to put on the fidget blankets… fabrics, yarns, little fidget stuff. I would have to say 90% was donated by the group. I just put it together.”
The effort became a collaboration between the Blanketeers and Happily Hooked Crochet of Flagler County, a community of women who gather weekly not only to crochet, but to support one another through life’s hardships.
“This group of ladies is absolutely caring,” Tejera said. “They’re very supportive. There are women in this group that, without being part of the group, they would have no one. They come to the group and this is where they get a lot of support. Mentally, it’s relieving.”
Each blanket tells its own story.
Some feature recycled shirt buttons and zippers for tactile stimulation. Others are whimsical scenes with gardens, bunnies, apple trees, butterflies, bees, and snails — each inspired by ideas from different women in the group.
One special blanket, Tejera explained, was built entirely from collective imagination.
“Within an hour and a half, in our mind, we had created what I was going to put on that blanket,” she said. “The clouds were requested by Peggy. Nancy wanted to see bunnies. Sylvia wanted flowers. Marianne wanted birds. I wanted the apple tree.”
The result? Functional art meant to soothe, stimulate, and reconnect memories.
For Flagler Volunteer Services’ Judy Bucek, who has worked with the Blanketeers for more than a decade, the donation was overwhelming.
“I was floored,” Bucek said. “I have never seen anything so detailed and so many of them. It’s so obvious the amount of love and dedication that was put into each one of these was just absolutely mind blowing.”
The Blanketeers, a volunteer program under Flagler Volunteer Services, have spent over 20 years knitting and crocheting blankets, hats, scarves, and booties for local neighbors in need. But these fidget blankets offer something uniquely therapeutic.
“A fidget blanket is a lap-size blanket that has various manipulatives on it,” Bucek explained. “It’s designed to engage people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, to keep them active and keep their hands busy and their minds busy.”
For Tejera, the purpose goes beyond the stitches.
“If this is the last thing that a person touches and it makes them happy, then we did our job,” she said. “This is the best feeling I want them to have if this is the last thing they’re going to be touching.”
It’s a sentiment that captures the heart behind every button sewn, every bead placed, and every patch carefully stitched.
A reminder that even in memory loss, comfort can still be found — often in the smallest things, made by the kindest hands.
Families interested in receiving a fidget blanket for a loved one can contact Flagler Volunteer Services at volunteer@flaglervolunteer.org. Donations of yarn, fabric, and tactile materials are always welcome to support the Blanketeers’ ongoing mission.
