Charles "Chip" Amuso of Wyndmoor is not your average teenager. For his Eagle Scout project, Amuso is overseeing the creation of 10 handmade quilts for residents of Keystone House, a residential hospice care home in Wyndmoor.

Amuso led a scrap fabric drive, collecting dozens of bags of material. He then guided his troop in sorting, cutting and cleaning the fabric as part of their service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Since then, he has been diligently sewing the pieces together to create beautiful quilts for Keystone. Many young people are helping him, including a class at the William H. Hunter School in Kensington.

At the June 5 meeting of the KeystoneCare Board of Directors, Amuso presented Executive Director Gail Inderwies with a completed quilt, which features the KeystoneCare logo in the top corner. He then visited a resident with social worker Elizabeth McDermott to present him with a personalized Philadelphia Eagles quilt. He also gave McDermott three other personalized quilts for families of residents who have passed away. Soon, he will deliver five more quilts bearing the KeystoneCare logo for Keystone House patients.

"I wanted to do something different than the typical Eagle Scout project," Amuso explained, "and I love to sew.”

“Chip gives us all both hope for the future of our community, as well as a sense of pride to have such a wonderful and caring young man making a difference,” Inderwies told us last week. “Although he appears seemingly self-assured, he is very kind and pays meticulous attention to the details of each blanket and its profound meaning to the recipient. Keystone Hospice and its patients are grateful for the opportunity to have the gift of personal time of this young man and his quilts.”

Amuso's sewing journey began in fourth grade, when he taught himself to make a tie for his father's Christmas gift. 

“My mom taught me a simple running stitch. After that, it was more trial and error over the years and YouTube! In eighth grade, I made a series of puppets so that my friends and I could put on 'King Lear' for our English class. I have also made some temperature quilts, which track the temperature for each day over a year through color-coding.”

Needless to say, Chip's parents are extremely proud of his effort to bring some handmade comfort to hospice patients.

"My wife, Colleen, and I are amazed at Chip's sewing and quilting skills and passion. I assure you that he does not get it from either of us," said his father, Peter Amuso, who has been a member of the KeystoneCare board since 2008 and board chairman since 2016.

Each quilt takes 10 hours to make, with an additional three hours to get all of the donated fabric cleaned, cut and ready.

Amuso, a member of Boy Scout Troop 474, based at the Scout House in Roxborough and chartered by the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, credits his fellow Boy Scouts, led by Scoutmaster Kyle Morano, and Teacher Karen Rufino’s middle school life skills students at William H. Hunter School for helping him cut fabric. 

At the time of our interview, Amuso had finished seven quilts, and was on track to finish the last three by the time this article appears in print. 

A graduate of Our Mother of Consolation School, Amuso is a rising senior at St. Joseph's Preparatory School. As of this interview, he has completed seven quilts and expects to finish the remaining three shortly. 

Chip has three siblings who all attended Our Mother of Consolation School: sister Jo, 21, a recent Bryn Mawr College graduate; brother Frank, 19, attending the College of the Holy Cross; and brother Finn, 15, a student at St. Joseph's Preparatory School.

For more information, visit keystonecare.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com