By LINDA CHION KENNEY
After a career in engineering and retirement living in Georgia, Lilia Singh found her way to Valencia Lakes in Wimauma, where she serves as president of the nonprofit quilting club, which advances her belief that everybody has a part to play in giving back to somebody.
For Singh, that includes her work as a volunteer at St. Joseph’s Hospital-South in Riverview, through which she found a cause for her quilting club partners to pursue.

Isolettes in the NICU at St. Joseph’s Hospital-South are outfitted with quilts handmade by Valencia Lakes Quilting Club members.
That led to the delivery this month of handcrafted quilts to use inside and over infant incubators in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
“They were so appreciative and overwhelmed at the number of quilts we delivered,” Singh said. “If you’re altruistic and you give back, it always feels so good.”
Valencia Lakes Quilting Club members meet 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays to work on their own quilts or to assist others in the process, which includes cutting, piecing, batting, basting, layering and binding. In keeping with its charitable mission as a tax-exempt nonprofit, members choose charity projects to work on annually, which is how Singh and Diane Keller, a former club president, made their way to St. Joseph’s Hospital-South in Riverview this month.

Diane Keller, left, and Lilia Singh, from the Valencia Lakes Quilting Club, stand on either side of an incubator with one quilt over the top plastic cover and another in the crib area.

NICU nurses holding the donated handmade quilts are, from left, Erin Pelletier, Andrea Cabacungan, Jannette Bautista and Marcia Feasel
They brought with them more than 40 handmade quilts for use in the isolettes that keep newborn babies warm and safe from germs and drafts.
Next up for the club is to quilt pieces for children with special needs at Beth Shields Middle School in Ruskin, some of whom are wheelchair-bound. Club members are in the process of creating 40- by 50-inch quilts to put on top of yoga mats purchased for the kids to lay on at school, or to drape over themselves in sitting positions.
“These are all worthy causes,” Keller said, of the club’s annual projects and outreach. “You can never do too much for people in need.”
Founded roughly 13 years ago, the club at any one time has 20 to 28 members, including a gentleman octogenarian and quilter, who retired as a U.S. Navy officer and worked as an electrical engineer.
“It was heartwarming, and a really nice feeling when we brought those quilts to the hospital,” Keller said. “We do projects like this every year, and every year we make red, white and blue themed quilts for veterans, which we deliver to different nursing homes around Sun City Center.”
Past projects have included as well making quilts for A Kid’s Place in Brandon, for children temporarily removed from their homes for safety from abuse and neglect, and for the Mary Martha House in Ruskin, a shelter for women in crisis. Quilters also have made headscarves and port pillows for women patients at the Moffitt Cancer Center.
The club raises money selling holiday table runners, tablecloths, tree skirts, placemats, napkins, pillows, purses, beach wraps, water bottle and cellphone holders, adult coverups and more at the Valencia Lakes holiday bazaar, which is used to purchase fabric and other club necessities. As one of a handful of Valencia Lakes nonprofit clubs, the quilting clubs receives quarterly donations from money raised at club Bingo events.
Moreover, Singh said, Valencia Lakes is home to a large number of veterans, who served in all branches of service, and who each year give her club $250 to help purchase fabric.
As for what drew them to quilting, the reasons are as varied as the club members who quilt together.
“Quilting is an exact science,” Singh said. “You can’t just ad lib it. It’s mathematical. You have to cut, measure twice, and fit the pieces together. Your mental abilities are always being tested, and then you have to sit and sew, or partner with someone who can.”
Keller, who was drawn to the craft 25 years ago watching a friend quilt, spent most of her working years as a clinical microbiologist. She worked in, then managed, microbiology labs and spent her later years of employment in corporate sales for microbiology products.

Photos courtesy St. Joseph’s Hospital-South
With hospital staff, Valencia Lakes Quilting Club members Diane Keller, left, in navy shirt, and Lilia Singh, to her right
The science-quilting link is a strong one for Keller.
“The most important thing you can do when you retire is to keep your mind and body active,” Keller said. “With quilting, you use your math skills, and there’s a bit of physical work to it. You don’t realize how creative you are, and that you have an eye for colors and for which colors go well together. A big part of belonging to a quilting club, or any club or organization, is the socialization. Our members come from all different backgrounds and all parts of the country. Many are well-traveled.”
In addition to sharing stories, talents and expertise, club members often share leftover fabric from quilts they have made for kids, grandchildren and friends. They welcome as well the opportunity to make quilts for strangers and charitable causes because, as Keller puts it, “Everybody I know that I could make a quilt for already has more than one.”