FOR A GOOD CAUSE:

It makes sense that the other name for a blanket would be “comforter.” Picture the famous Peanuts character Linus, thumb in mouth, clutching his blankie as it draped along the floor.

Children love their blankets, but as Joy Horrocks discovered several years ago, so do adults. Especially sick adults.

Horrocks’ daughter had been diagnosed with a blood disorder. Sandy Berg Whiley was undergoing treatment at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.

The hospital room was cold, the chemicals flowing through her veins lowered her body temperature, and Whiley was freezing. The hospital gave patients flannel sheets to cover themselves with during the procedure, but Whiley said no matter how many they gave her, she just couldn’t get warm.

Horrocks had been sewing fleece blankets for family members for years. Whiley asked her mom to make her one of the soft, warm blankets so she could take it with her the next time she had to go in for treatment.

“My mom thought she was being funny, because the only fleece fabric she had in the house at the time had little duckies on it. But when I took it to the infusion center, it made people laugh,” Whiley said.

Looking around, Whiley, who had sewn as a young girl, was inspired to make blankets herself so she could offer them to other patients who were as cold as she was when she came back to the hospital for her treatments.

Friends offered to help her sew, and within months Whiley had founded the nonprofit Joyful Foundation, named in honor of her mom. The Foundation, which began meeting in Orange more than two years ago, supplies the materials for the blankets to its volunteers, who assemble them either at monthly group meetings or in their own homes. In January, one of its members, Sandy Meadows, who lives in Newport Beach, decided to start a group locally.

“I realized the time I was spending on the freeway driving back and forth [to Orange] could be better spent making more blankets,” Meadows said.

Meadows’ group meets once a month on Tuesday morning and evenings at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Stake Center (chapel), 2300 Bonita Canyon Drive, Newport Beach.

In a room set up with cutting tables and sewing machines, stacks of soft, bright colored fleece in patterns that include ducks, flowers, paw prints and hearts are in various stages of completion. The double-sided blankets are put together in assembly line fashion, and once the two pieces are top-stitched along the edge, they are secured in the center by stitching that forms a heart.

Laura Armstrong is the Newport Beach group’s volunteer coordinator. She organizes the meetings, sews blankets, takes them home to wash them and stores supplies in her garage.

Once finished, the blankets are donated and delivered to local hospitals and medical centers. Patients undergoing chemotherapy or other infusion treatments receive a blanket that has been washed in very hot water to ensure it’s as sterile as possible, tied with a ribbon and wrapped in plastic. The card inside each package reads, “These hand-made blankets have been lovingly sewed and washed by Sandy and Friends.”

Nancy Donahue cuts, sews, washes and wraps 40 blankets a month in the basement sewing room of her Newport Beach home. When they’re all wrapped up and ready to go, Donahue loads up her car and delivers the blankets she’s promised to the Child/Life department at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

All the children there are critically ill, Donahue said.

“This is a labor of love for me. Every child wants a blanket, and each one I make is special to every child,” Donahue said.

Last year the Joyful Foundation gave away more than 3,000 blankets, and Whiley said it has already passed that number this year.

She’s still receiving treatment herself, and now when Whiley walks into the infusion center at the hospital, she said she notices the “splashes of cheerful colored blankets of ducks, frogs, Hawaiian flowers and other designs covering many of the patients.”

“I think it’s a very basic need. When we were young and frightened, we grabbed our blankets,” Whiley said.

The Joyful Foundation depends entirely on volunteers. The foundation needs volunteers to help cut fleece and sew. The organization will sponsor a personal blanket-making event for a group or organization; all supplies will be provided. Cash donations as well as new or used sewing machines in working order are appreciated. The Joyful Foundation is at 8502 E. Chapman Ave., Suite 322, Orange. For information, call (714) 997-9532 or go to www.joyfulfoundation.org.

SUE THOENSEN may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or at sue.thoensen@latimes.com.