A Jacksonville quilt shop is helping with the healing in the aftermath of the Thurston High School shootings.

Country Quilts workers are making a quilt/wall hanging with some of the outpouring of quilt blocks for the Thurston Healing Quilt project.

"It's a pretty big undertaking," said Country Quilts employee Debra Burchett of the project, started by Springfield resident Esther Hunter.

Hunter wanted to put her energies into a healing quilt after feeling grief over the death of her father, and then a short time later feeling stunned by the May shootings that left two dead and 20 others injured.

Hunter was visiting Jacksonville in mid-June, posting fliers about her idea for the Thurston Healing Quilt, when she stopped by Country Quilts.

"We got to talking, and we found she has no quilting background," said Burchett, who became coordinator of the local Healing Quilt effort.

"We helped her figure out her layouts, figured out her needs and offered our services to her so she could get some quilt blocks done."

Hunter's project has since taken off _ 400 quilt blocks have poured in from all across the country, from all age groups. Where just one quilt was planned, now six large quilts and several smaller hangings are possible. Several Lane County quilters' groups are busy working with the bulk of the blocks.

One of the larger quilts will be delivered to President Clinton by Teresa Miltonberger, the last Thurston shooting victim to be released from the hospital. Another quilt will hang at Thurston; a third will be on display at Springfield City Hall.

Others will be loaned to any group that wants to display them as a message against violence.

Nearly 40 of the donated squares have landed at Country Quilts. On Wednesday, Burchett was busy cutting and machine-stitching the squares for a small wall hanging.

The blocks she's worked with come from people as diverse as a grade-school boy and an 84-year-old care home resident.

One block has a poem about violence written in permanent marker; another combines Thurston's school colors, red and black, with a blue ribbon, the symbol of anti-violence efforts.

"The blocks are hard to describe. They're all unique in their own being," Burchett said. "It's truly wonderful."