Connecticut Quilt A Hot Item At National Conference

By Nancy K. Crevier

Newtown resident Adell Mastro is pleased that the quilt she made and donated to the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference, held June 23 to 27, in Kansas City, Mo., raised $875 at auction. “It was this year’s highest earning item,” said Ms Mastro, competing against industry donations.

This is the second year that Ms Mastro has created a quilt to support the SkillsUSA organization, which partners students, teachers, and industry in preparing students for trade job industries. Last year, Ms Mastro worked with students from Henry Abbot Technical High School in Danbury to make a quilt for the annual leadership conference. That quilt reaped $700 at the auction, all of which went to the youth who work at the event, as did the proceeds from this year’s quilt.

A quilter for more than 40 years and an advisor to Bullard-Havens Technical High School in Bridgeport for 30 years, Ms Mastro is on the National Education Team for Commercial Baking and is the Connecticut State chairperson for the Commercial Baking Competition for SkillsUSA, held each spring.

“I do this to support this group,” said Ms Mastro. “[After leaving Bullard-Havens] I couldn’t give it up. When you graduate from a regular high school, you are qualified to go on to more school. You are not qualified to go on and do anything specific. With a technical high school education, you basically have two and a half years of apprenticeship out of the way when you graduate, and you are prepared to either go to work or go on to more schooling. With what kids learn at a technical high school, many of them can put themselves through college with the trade skills they have learned,” she said. “Technical high schools are the best-kept secret in Connecticut,” she added.

This year’s quilt was a project she did solely on her own, seeing how successful the project was last year in raising funds for the youth. Using the T-shirts from last year’s National Leadership and Skills Conference, Ms Mastro’s finished piece measures approximately eight feet by seven feet.

Each state with groups taking part in the annual conference has its own T-shirt, she explained. “I cut each T-shirt logo into the shape of the state it was from, and then pieced them together [from left to right] in the order in which each state had joined SkillsUSA. Each of the 50 states, plus Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Navaho Nation, are included in the 2012 quilt. The upper left corner square recognizes VICA [Vocational Industries Club of America], which is what SkillsUSA was first known as, 48 years ago, and in the lower right hand corner, that square is dedicated to SkillsUSA.

The squares are embellished with the state trading pins. “Some of them are very hard to get, and they are beautiful, especially the ones from Navaho Nation and Hawaii,” Ms Mastro said. “Those two are prized,” she said.

“I do this because I believe in those kids, and the potential that they have,” Ms Mastro said. This year’s quilt, she learned, will make its new home with the 2011 quilt pieced together by her Henry Abbot Technical group. “The same Texas woman who bid on last year’s quilt, bought this year’s quilt,” she said.