EAST LONGMEADOW – Quilts and Treasures, at 56 Shaker Road, is hosting its fourth annual “With ‘T’ea There is Hope” fundraiser to help promote Brain Trauma Awareness Month on March 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Valerie Morton, owner of Quilts and Treasures, told Reminder Publications she started hosting the event after one her best customers Nancy Powers, a resident, suffered a traumatic brain injury after a monument accidently fell on her five years ago.

“Nancy and [her husband] Steve own [Venezian Monumental Works in Springfield] and a 3,000 pound stone fell on Nancy,” Morton said. “It’s a miracle that she’s even alive. It’s a miracle that she’s still sewing. She’s been such a great supporter of the store that we wanted to do something to support her.”

She added Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston was “instrumental” in Powers’ recovery and in her regaining the ability to sew.

“They actually brought in a sewing machine so that they could work with her on it,” Morton noted. “She comes and takes classes. She’s still a member of many of our clubs here.”

Proceeds for the fundraiser benefit the traumatic brain unit of Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, she added. During the past two years, the fundraiser has donated $3,000 each year to the hospital.

She noted the store will also donate 10 percent of the day’s sales to the fundraiser.

Morton said the fundraiser is based around tea because the calming nature of the beverage.

“As I was doing some research, I came across this saying that says, ‘With tea there is hope,’ and I thought trauma begins with t and even with trauma there is hope,” she explained. “When you have tea, you just think of being very calm and quiet. Tea and teapots have sort of become our theme.”

She added the event will include a tea cup auction, a tea tasting courtesy of Tea Guys.

Tea won’t be the only thing on the menu as far as the event goes. Morton said the fundraiser would also include a quilt block challenge, a raffle for a quilt and a vintage sewing machine, and the use of embroidery machines for people to create name tags for themselves.

“Each year at the event, we have [participants] sit down and make quilt blocks and then Steve takes them and makes them into a raffle quilt for the next year,” she noted.

Last year, the quilt block challenge was t-blocks, a popular quilting pattern, Morton said.

The business also ordered quilt dots – magnets with pictures of the last three raffle quilts on them, which would be sold during the event, she added.

“Or there’s jewelry, a bracelet or a necklace, you can put the different magnetic pin dots into,” Morton said.

Anyone interested in registering for the event can call Morton at 525-4789.

For more information about Quilts and Treasures visit www.quiltsandtreasuresinc.com.