The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 left Susan Morissette feeling cold. So one night, she gathered her husband, Bill, and four young children together on the couch in their Winslow home. They wrapped up in a big quilt and talked about what happened, looking for answers and thinking of ways to help. As they tried to make sense of it all, 4-year-old Christopher looked up at his mother.

“I wish everybody could have this feeling,” he said, pulling the quilt close.

His words echoed in Morissette’s mind. Everybody could have this feeling, she thought, if only they had a quilt to keep them warm.

“Having four children, it’s not like I could jump up and go down and feed firemen and dig through the rubble,” Morissette said. “We just wanted to do more and we didn’t have the finances to give.”

They wanted to help in any way they could, however, and the Heart of America Quilt seemed like the best way. Since that fateful night on the couch, Morissette has worked nonstop, calling schools around the state to see if they’d be willing to participate, setting up a Web site, recruiting friends and family to start the project in other states, and hunting down supplies. New Hampshire, Maryland, Florida, North Carolina, Vermont and Illinois are now on board, and Morissette’s dream of a big, cuddly quilt has grown substantially.

When you meet Morissette, it doesn’t seem possible that she has the time to sleep, let alone organize a cross-country quilting effort. Her mother-in-law, Sylvia Gilbert, answers the door and Morissette calls out and invites you in, balancing 7-month-old twins Jackie and Noah on each hip. As she hands off the babies to Gilbert, Morissette clears off a space at the kitchen table and asks if you want a cup of coffee. Christopher serenades you with a one-stringed guitar while her 3-year-old son, Joshua, looks curiously. He doesn’t like girls, and when you catch his eye, he runs into the other room.

Though she has her hands full, Morissette isn’t too busy to make time for people in need.

“It’s part of our life and it’s what we want to teach our children, to be caring for our neighbors,” she said.

This time, the neighbors happen to be in New York City. When the quilt is completed, Morissette hopes to have Maine’s congressional delegation present it to the families of the World Trade Center attack victims. They may need a little help bringing it there, however. Two weeks ago, the quilt measured 200 square feet. Now, it will be at least an acre large and its 4-by-4-foot squares will be arranged in the pattern of a giant American flag.

“We’re going to sew it together and give it to the victims and show them how awesome this state is,” Morissette said.

She’s had no problem finding “awesome” Mainers to help with the quilt. The Morissettes started out buying supplies with their own money, but as soon as people found out about the quilt, the donations flooded in. Marden’s in Waterville gave fabric. A company in California gave permanent markers for the signatures. Morissette’s sister-in-law Debbie Hebert and her friend Peggy Wentworth volunteered to sew the squares. And schools throughout the state, including the Carmel-Etna-Dixmont-Levant district and Bangor High School, have been more than willing to have pupils sign the squares.

“They were very, very into trying to do something to help,” Suzanne Smith, principal at Levant Elementary School, said of her pupils. “They’re aware at a child’s level of what’s going on. This was a way to show they cared.”

Though Morissette will hold public signings for adults in the community, she focused on schools because she felt that children needed an outlet for their feelings, even if they can’t grasp the enormity of what’s going on.

When her 3-year-old son, Joshua, saw news coverage of the World Trade Center attacks, he turned to his mother and asked, “Is that monsters doing that, mommy?”

“Monsters do bad things – that’s a 3-year-old’s way of thinking,” Morissette said. “They see it; they feel it – they can feel the tension.”

And when they feel tension, they want to do something to help.

“Our student council wanted to do something positive that would be long-lasting as a tribute to the people who perished in the disaster,” said Louise Harrington, a fifth-grade teacher and student council adviser at Albert S. Hall Elementary School in Waterville. “It was something they could really feel good about, helping someone.”

Harrington read about the quilt in a local newspaper and thought it would complement the school’s penny drives and other related projects.

“I was very touched by the fact that she wanted to do something to help and that her family wanted to do this together,” she said. “I just think she’s an angel for doing this.”

For Morissette, helping others is just a part of her life. She’d rather see people donate money to the American Red Cross – “where it would help” – than to her quilt fund. She wants people to remember to pray for all the people who got hurt. And she hopes to recruit more schools within Maine and volunteers in other states, because the bigger the quilt, the more people it can keep warm.

“I have this vision of it being a giant Band-Aid,” Morissette said.

To participate or donate supplies, call Susan Morissette at 873-3573 or visit www.heartofamericaquilt.com.