Shares Goes to School! organizer Nancy Stewart, right, helps people fill out their raffle information in Evolve on Saturday. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Over the weekend, Shepherdstown Shares held its third annual “Shares Goes to School!” fundraiser in Evolve.

According to organizer Nancy Stewart, this fundraiser was unlike either of the previous two, in more ways than one.

“This year, we decided to combine a teacher emergency fund with a fund for at-risk children in our local schools, with the donations from this event,” Stewart said, noting that in previous years the fundraiser was only for financially assisting with projects that teachers need more funding to complete.

According to Stewart, the fundraiser recently developed a two-part focus, after Shepherdstown Shares was approached by a navigator in a local school, who was seeking funding to ensure a local child had the necessary clothing to get through the school year. Shepherdstown Shares provided the requested funding and then reached out to all of the other representatives of the Communities in Schools program in Jefferson County’s public schools, to figure out how they could work more closely together in the future. The funds raised from Shares Goes to School! this year will be divided between the teachers emergency fund and the fund for at-risk children, to ensure they are clothed adequately and aren’t going without essential items.

“Navigators in the schools now know to reach out to us for help,” Stewart said. “The schools don’t have the funds to go out and buy shoes or a backpack for a child in need. With the money from this fundraiser, we will be able to dispense money to navigators who identify specific needs within their schools.”

Pattie Wilmoth, of Shepherdstown, shows the two sides of her reversible quilt, which was one of the quilts being raffled off this weekend in Evolve. Tabitha Johnston

Another change to this year’s fundraiser, was that it was in the form of a quilt raffle, rather than a simple solicitation for donations. Earlier this year, Shepherdstown resident Pattie Wilmoth donated four colorful quilts that she had made to Shepherdstown Shares, assuming the 501©(3) nonprofit organization would be able to put the quilts to good use. What she had not expected, however, was for her quilts to become the main attraction for the organization’s annual fundraiser.

“I didn’t have a goal when I donated them. I had made the quilts with fabric that I had already had at home and wanted them to be put to good use,” Wilmoth said, mentioning she would be open to making a similar number of quilts for Shepherdstown Shares to raffle off again at next year’s fundraiser. “Quilting is my hobby. I just love fabric, and I like fiddling with color! This is relaxation for me — putting the pieces together and finishing it up and quilting the outside of it.”

Wilmoth was present at the fundraiser with her sewing machine and fabric pieces, to walk visitors through the steps of how a quilt is made. She said the fabric squares sewn together by her and those she coached through the sewing process would likely be used to make one of the quilts she hopes to donate to Shepherdstown Shares.

According to Wilmoth, becoming actively involved in this particular fundraiser seemed incredibly appropriate, due to her career as a family and consumer sciences teacher at Shepherdstown Middle School, prior to retirement.

“There’s never enough money to go around for teachers. I know that, after teaching for 25 years in the county,” Wilmoth said. “You end up putting a lot of personal money and time into it, because there’s just not enough.”

The fundraiser also included a storytime for the first time this year, so children would feel included in the event.

“When I started looking at the number of children’s books in our library system that had the word ‘quilt’ in them, I was stunned!” Stewart said, mentioning around 20 of these children’s books were borrowed for the event. “We wanted to have a storytime, to make the event a fuller experience. It occurred to me that there were probably a few children’s book on quilts. I started looking and was astonished at how many were just in our own library system!”

In the end, Stewart said the changes to the fundraiser proved to be an undeniable success.

“This year, because we have such an attractive display, I would say that we have a more energetic crowd,” Stewart said. “A very good number [have] come in to participate in the raffle.”