Grandmother’s Mission: Sylvia Miller founded Elijah’s Blanket for NICU families

By Catherine Godbey | Living 50 Plus

After hundreds of hours of making slip knots and chains of yarn, Sylvia Miller arrived at Huntsville Hospital for Women and Children armed with 30 hand-knitted blankets and hand-written notes. The blankets created by the Elijah’s Blanket volunteers will end up wrapped around the mothers and fathers of infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

“I think about all the mamas and daddies in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). I think about how the rooms are so cold and how so many of these parents are on a roller coaster ride because they just don’t know what to expect,” Miller said. “These blankets are one small way to show the parents that someone cares about them and has been praying for them and their babies.”

For the 59-year-old Miller, founder of Elijah’s Blanket, the project is personal.

Miller, the grandmother of seven, formed the nonprofit Elijah’s Blanket after the birth of her grandson, Elijah Steffen. On Dec. 2, 2021, Elijah was born at 24 weeks gestation weighing 13 ounces and 11 inches long and suffering from lung disease and pulmonary hypertension.

While nurses and doctors monitored Elijah in the Huntsville Hospital NICU for the first four months of his life and then at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham through August 2023, Miller began hand-knitting blankets.

Every day, after working as a magistrate with the city of Decatur, Miller would grab a skein of yarn, knit and pray.

“Going in the NICU and seeing those parents with those babies and knowing what Kelsey (Elijah’s mother) was going through, taking one step forward to take three steps back, really got to me,” Miller said. “The Lord laid it on my heart to do something for these mamas and daddies.”

In July 2022, Elijah’s Blanket was born. The group adopted the mission: “We can’t erase the emotions and concern, but we can show the love of Jesus Christ and support NICU parents in a tangible way.”

Over the past two years, the outreach organization, which has donated more than 200 blankets to Madison Hospital and Huntsville Hospital, has grown from a one-woman operation into a core group of eight members.

“Elijah’s Blanket is my baby and it’s growing,” Miller said. “Elijah’s Blanket could not do what it is doing without the amazing ladies that make up the core group.”

Those ladies range from new mothers to grandmothers. Most have been affected by the NICU.

“We have created this little family and share our stories with one another. It’s amazing how God has brought us all together for this one purpose,” Miller said.

Among the faithful blanket makers is Scarlet Bolan.

“I experienced the NICU 12 years ago when my niece Natalie was born. She spent 32 days in the NICU. It is such a sad, yet amazing, place. The parents are on a roller coaster. One day things are looking good and the next they are bad,” Bolan, 51, said.

Bolan started participating in Elijah’s Blanket a year ago when Miller spoke at Decatur Baptist.

“I knew that I had to get involved,” Bolan said. “I knew that I wanted to be a part of doing anything that would encourage the parents and let them know that someone cares about what they are going through.”

Like many of the volunteers with Elijah’s Blanket, Bolan had no experience hand knitting blankets. From Miller, she learned the basics.

“Now, a year later, I have knitted 40 blankets,” Bolan said.

Miller has led hand-knitting classes at Decatur Baptist, where she attends church, Warehouse Coffee in Hartselle, High Point Market in downtown Decatur, the Priceville Event Center and the First Priority Building in Decatur.

“I see it as a numbers game. The more people I see and can tell about Elijah’s Blanket, the more people who will want to get involved, especially if they have a history with the NICU. People who have been touched by the NICU get what we are doing and want to be part of it,” Miller said.

For the blankets, Miller recommended using Yarn Bee yarn or Bernant Big Blanket yarn. Completing a blanket takes four skeins. Miller gives newcomers a sample blanket for them to examine the size and width of the creation.

“It was my husband’s idea. He said instead of just taking anything they gave me and redoing it myself or not using it at all that they needed an example to go by. It has helped a great deal,” Miller said. “Now, some of the ladies I have taught are teaching others. I am so proud of them.”

Each blanket comes with a handwritten note from the person who knitted the blanket and a QR code that tells the Gospel story. The blankets also contain notes from area children. To spread the message of Elijah and Elijah’s Blanket, Miller visited Decatur Heritage Christian Academy’s fourth grade. She demonstrated how to make the blankets and also asked them to make cards for the recipients. Children from Decatur Baptist also created cards to go with the blankets.

Three recipients of the blankets, including the mother who received the very first Elijah’s Blanket, have reached out to Miller.

“All I ask to know is if it was a boy or a girl and for the first name. Some choose to tell me more. It is nice to hear from the families who have been touched by the blankets,” Miller said.

For more information, visit Elijah’s Blanket on Facebook or elijahsblanket on Instagram.

As for Elijah, he continues to thrive at his home in Eva with his parents, Jon and Kelsey Steffen, and his older sister, Nyla Steffen.

“Elijah is wonderful. He is crawling everywhere and trying to walk. He is able to pull up by himself and walking using the wall. He is only on oxygen at night. We are very proud of him and his development,” Miller said.