A family’s experience of grief became the starting point for a day of service in North Charleston on Sunday, when children, parents, veterans and first responders gathered to make practical gifts for people going through difficult moments.
Blankies 4 My Buddies Foundation hosted its Wrapped in Hope 9/11 Day of Service at the North Charleston Fire Museum & Education Center from 1 to 4 p.m. Volunteers made no-sew blankets, assembled hygiene kits and wrote personal notes of encouragement. The finished items are being given to Project Street Outreach for distribution to Lowcountry veterans and other neighbors facing hardship.
The event was organized with Project Street Outreach and The TransEd Foundation, with support from 9/11 Day, AmeriCorps and the City of North Charleston. It also carried an official local designation: Mayor Reggie Burgess named Sept. 20, 2026, “Wrapped in Hope Day” in North Charleston.
The service project grew from a family story. Blankies 4 My Buddies was founded in 2013 by CJ Matthews, who was five years old when his family lost his baby sister, Karsen Angelica. His mother, Kristen Wright Matthews, said he began handing out blankets to homeless veterans as he tried to cope with the loss.
Over time, that small act became a youth-led nonprofit. The organization now collects and donates blankets, books and food to children and families who are grieving, sick, displaced or homeless. Its work has included partnerships with Charleston-area organizations such as MUSC Children’s Health, Lowcountry Orphan Relief and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Charleston.
Sunday’s gathering connected that history to a new generation. The event was designed partly for young people who were not yet born on Sept. 11, 2001, giving them a way to learn about the day’s significance through service and community care. Rather than focusing only on remembrance, participants spent the afternoon making something that could be used by another person.
For families attending, the work offered a simple way to participate together. A child could help write a note, a parent could assemble a hygiene kit, and veterans or first responders could share time with neighbors. The finished blankets and supplies gave the afternoon a clear destination: people who may need warmth, encouragement or basic necessities.
The project’s roots also show how children can shape a community response. CJ’s first effort was personal and modest, but it gave his family a constructive way to move through sorrow. More than a decade later, that idea has become an organization that invites other young people to take part in helping others.
The North Charleston event offered a hopeful picture of service as something families can practice together. Its message was carried through ordinary materials—fabric, soap, paper and pens—and through the decision to spend a Sunday afternoon making sure neighbors would receive a tangible sign of care.
For the people who receive the blankets, kits and notes, the items will be useful on their own. For the volunteers, the gathering showed how a family’s response to loss can grow into a continuing tradition of generosity, bringing different generations into the same room with a shared task.
Blankies 4 My Buddies’ public description frames this kind of work as a continuing service rather than a one-day gesture. Its mission centers on making and donating blankets, books and food to children and families facing illness, grief, displacement or homelessness. That context helps explain why Sunday’s materials were chosen: each could be made by people with different ages and abilities, then handed to another person in a practical form.
Project Street Outreach gives the day’s work a direct route to neighbors who need it. The event did not ask volunteers to solve every hardship; it asked them to make something useful, write something kind and leave the distribution to an organization already serving Lowcountry veterans and other neighbors. In that arrangement, remembrance became action without pretending a few hours could erase the losses people carry.
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