CHAMPION - Lorraine Donaldson, instructor of the multi-disabilities unit at Champion High School, said she and two assistants, Laura Lyndes and Nicole Sweitzer, worked with the seven students in the past three months to make 15 blankets.
''It's a fun project. The students look forward to making the blankets in their spare time. We started in January,'' Donaldson said Tuesday.
She said the effort is through the ''Warm Up America'' nationwide program, which has volunteers making blankets for wounded troops. This is the fifth year of making blankets.
Donaldson said the class has made blankets and other items in past years for Beatitude House, the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and Warren Family Mission.
''We thought about the veterans hospital in Cleveland and making the blankets for them,'' she said.
This year, the blankets were donated to the Army, with representatives of the local Army Recruiting Office in Warren picking them up.
Donaldson said the blankets will be distribute to U.S. troops in Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany, and to wounded soldiers at the Veterans Administration hospital in Brecksville and the Cleveland Clinic.
''The Army will take some of them to Germany for the soldiers who were wounded,'' she said.
Sgt 1st Class Martin Mounts of the local Army recruiting office said the blankets are taken to the USO Metts Station in Cleveland, which will send them to the various locations.
''What they did was very appreciated,'' Mounts said when he received the phone call from Donaldson about the blankets.
Donaldson said her students looked forward to working on the blankets during their free time.
She said originally they were only going to make 10 and ended up with 15 blankets.
''Everyone was eager to work together on this. It was a team effort,'' she said.
Donaldson said she goes to many garage sales throughout the year to get yarn and has also received donations of yarn from people for the project.