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Contact: Carmen Ramos Chandler
(818) 677-2130
carmen.chandler@csun.edu

Valley Quilters to Present NCOD with Historic Quilt

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Sept. 8, 2000) ‹ The San Fernando Valley Quilting Association will present CSUN's National Center on Deafness (NCOD) with a historical quilt at a special ceremony Monday, Sept. 11, at the First Lutheran Church of Northridge.

The wall quilt, which was actually won as a prize by an NCOD staff member, has been mounted and framed by the quilting association which will present it to NCOD director Merri C. Pearson at 6:45 p.m. at the church at 18355 Roscoe Blvd.

The wall quilt, a 49"x54" hand- and machine-pieced quilt entitled "Achieving a Global Community Through Literacy," was commissioned as the grand prize for the 59th biennial

The quilt features the convention logo, an open book on a stand with the world emerging from its pages in front of a window. Beneath the bookstand are three additional shelves upon which sit artifacts pertaining to deafness and key publications that influenced the field of deaf education over the years. An alphabet border symbolizing literacy surrounds this.

Ila Sachs, who works 10 hours a week as an interpreter at CSUN'S Student Health Center, won the quilt in a raffle at the convention. Impressed by its historical value and workmanship, Sachs decided to donate it to the National Center on Deafness in memory of a colleague, Debbie Barber Gonzales, who died of cancer last year.

"The quilt doesn't belong to me, it belongs to the deaf community," Sachs said. "What I know about being an interpreter I learned from the NCOD. I wanted to give something back to them and the deaf community."

The San Fernando Valley Quilting Association volunteered to mount and frame the quilt so that it could be preserved for generations.

Cal State Northridge, through its National Center on Deafness, provides sign language interpreting and other specialized services to nearly 300 deaf students, serving the largest university population of deaf and hard of hearing students in the western United States.

California State University, Northridge has more than 28,000 full- and part-time students and offers 48 bachelor's and 39 master's degrees. Founded in 1958, it is the only four-year university in the San Fernando Valley.