UNDERWOOD — A group of western Minnesota women is embarking on a weeklong journey to deliver hundreds of handmade quilts to soldiers at a North Carolina Army base.

The quilting group, which participates in a program called Quilts of Valor, has sewn and shipped 4,500 blankets to U.S. soldiers throughout the past four years.

On Saturday, the 40 Otter Tail County women boarded a bus bound for Fort Bragg and brought 1,100 quilts with them. They have gathered throughout the past several months to make the quilts for soldiers overseas.

The quilters hope to bring comfort to the soldiers who receive them.

“You feel bad for what they have gone through, but it is so rewarding to hand them that quilt and they hug the quilt like it is a piece of their mother,” quilter Phyllis Kusnierek said.

Some of the soldiers send thank-you letters to the women in return.

“I am at a loss for words at the amount of kindness and caring you show,” one solider wrote in a letter to quilter Emma Ciliberti.