By Kevin Pires
21st Century News Media Service
Sewing volunteers, from left, Nancy Hundley, Dot Schlosser and Nancy Dollahon hold samples of their work for Little Dresses for Africa at Steve?s Sewing, Vacuum and Quilting, King of Prussia. With them are Steve?s employees Christine Fackler, second from right, and Barb Jones. Submitted photo
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It was an ad at Steve?s Sewing, Vacuum and Quilting in King of Prussia that first caught Nancy Hundley?s attention. The listing was for a charity sewing class called ?Little Dresses for Africa.?
Hundley called her friend Dot Schlosser and invited her to join. The $5 price tag proved an added incentive.
?We couldn?t lose,? said Hundley.
At the end of that first class, as the dresses they sewed were being collected, the women asked if they could hold on to theirs to show the congregation at the Haws Avenue United Methodist Church in Norristown.
Those two initial dresses, sewn at a class taken on a whim, have been joined today by a hundred more. And Little Dresses for Africa, an international nonprofit Christian organization that seeks to provide African children with some basic necessities, gained a regional outpost.
Rachel O?Neill, of Brownstown, Mich., started Little Dresses for Africa in 2008 and it has grown rapidly. After it was featured on ?NBC Nightly News,? a viewer offered O?Neill warehouse space for the project?s expansion. Donations have arrived from all 50 states, and dresses have been sent beyond Africa to other countries in need like Mexico, Haiti and Cambodia.
The group?s mission is to curb the rate at which girls are abducted and molested. According to Little Dresses, reports show that a new dress deters potential assailants by suggesting that the girl they are targeting is being looked after.
Hundley explained that lack of attire may ?send a message that this is a girl that nobody cares about.?
Each dress is made with an easy-to-follow form detailed on the Little Dresses website, littledressesforafrica.org/blog, a simple pillowcase pattern that allows for quick replication and keeps costs low. It is recommended that the dresses be made of cotton or a cotton blend to stand up to repeated washings and the African climate.
To date, more than 1 million dresses have been produced and shipped to 43 African countries. Continued...
Those who have never handled needle and thread should not worry. Charity sewing does not preclude their participation.
?Even beginner sewers could make them,? Hundley said.
In addition to sewing volunteers, donations toward fabric and trim are also needed. The Haws Avenue United Methodist group estimates that each dress ends up costing around $12.
The dresses are not merely utilitarian, however. In fact, their aesthetic appeal has garnered interest for them outside of the typical 2 to 12 age range.
?We had a lady ask if we could make one in her size,? said Nancy Dollahon, another parishioner spearheading the sewing at the Haws Avenue church.
While Little Dresses for Africa is religiously affiliated, church membership is not a prerequisite for participating. Church groups have provided a beneficial organizing structure and yet, many have learned of Little Dresses on their own and contribute individually.
Volunteers print patterns out at home, work on them at local sewing circles and send the finished product directly to the initiative?s Michigan headquarters, where they will be packaged and shipped to Africa or one of the many other countries needing donations.
The dresses are then distributed via orphanages, schools and churches, and the children will receive them regardless of their beliefs.
In Norristown, after a dress or, in this case, many dresses are finished, they are taken to Steve?s, which pays to ship them to Nancy?s Notions, a sewing supply retailer based in Wisconsin, which in turn facilitates the shipping of the dresses to their final destinations. Nancy?s Notions alone has been responsible for transporting 63,000 dresses.
The Haws Avenue women recall that without a product to show, initial reaction to the project was tepid. Continued...
Hundley said they received a ?so what?? response when they first introduced the project to fellow parishioners.
The project gained steam only when the women publicly presented the first batch of dresses during a Sunday service in which the Rev. Dr. Anita Powell, district superintendent of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, conferred a blessing on them and the congregation was able to see the product of just three people?s labor.
?I got the idea to send letters out to the community to see if we could get other groups,? said Schlosser, the other founding member of the Haws Avenue group. ?And we?ve gotten three other churches and three or four individuals.?
They have been joined by Hearts and Hands, a group from the Church of the Good Shepherd in King of Prussia, Faith Church in Worcester and St. John?s Episcopal, also in Norristown.
Clothing drives are nothing new. And yet Little Dresses broadens the conventional understanding of charity by creating a more intimate relation between donor and recipient. The time spent crafting each dress deepens a person?s relationship to the donation and to the reality of the situation in poor countries.
?When I?m sewing, I envision the little girl,? Hundley said.
In the midst of a community struggling to make sense of the violence that surrounds it, campaigns like Little Dresses for Africa offer a temporary relief.
?There?s too much bad news in Norristown,? Hundley said.
Their church group plans to continue through the end of the year, and it is asking both for donations and more sewing volunteers.
And maybe then, one dress per little girl will become two. Continued...
?I was hoping they would give them two dresses, one they could wear and one they could wash, Hundley said. ?How are you going to wash your dress if you only have one??
Anyone who wishes to get involved may phone Schlosser at 610-539-1727 or 610-787-1660.
It was an ad at Steve?s Sewing, Vacuum and Quilting in King of Prussia that first caught Nancy Hundley?s attention. The listing was for a charity sewing class called ?Little Dresses for Africa.?
Hundley called her friend Dot Schlosser and invited her to join. The $5 price tag proved an added incentive.
?We couldn?t lose,? said Hundley.
At the end of that first class, as the dresses they sewed were being collected, the women asked if they could hold on to theirs to show the congregation at the Haws Avenue United Methodist Church in Norristown.
Those two initial dresses, sewn at a class taken on a whim, have been joined today by a hundred more. And Little Dresses for Africa, an international nonprofit Christian organization that seeks to provide African children with some basic necessities, gained a regional outpost.
Rachel O?Neill, of Brownstown, Mich., started Little Dresses for Africa in 2008 and it has grown rapidly. After it was featured on ?NBC Nightly News,? a viewer offered O?Neill warehouse space for the project?s expansion. Donations have arrived from all 50 states, and dresses have been sent beyond Africa to other countries in need like Mexico, Haiti and Cambodia.
The group?s mission is to curb the rate at which girls are abducted and molested. According to Little Dresses, reports show that a new dress deters potential assailants by suggesting that the girl they are targeting is being looked after.
Hundley explained that lack of attire may ?send a message that this is a girl that nobody cares about.?
Each dress is made with an easy-to-follow form detailed on the Little Dresses website, littledressesforafrica.org/blog, a simple pillowcase pattern that allows for quick replication and keeps costs low. It is recommended that the dresses be made of cotton or a cotton blend to stand up to repeated washings and the African climate.
To date, more than 1 million dresses have been produced and shipped to 43 African countries.
Those who have never handled needle and thread should not worry. Charity sewing does not preclude their participation.
?Even beginner sewers could make them,? Hundley said.
In addition to sewing volunteers, donations toward fabric and trim are also needed. The Haws Avenue United Methodist group estimates that each dress ends up costing around $12.
The dresses are not merely utilitarian, however. In fact, their aesthetic appeal has garnered interest for them outside of the typical 2 to 12 age range.
?We had a lady ask if we could make one in her size,? said Nancy Dollahon, another parishioner spearheading the sewing at the Haws Avenue church.
While Little Dresses for Africa is religiously affiliated, church membership is not a prerequisite for participating. Church groups have provided a beneficial organizing structure and yet, many have learned of Little Dresses on their own and contribute individually.
Volunteers print patterns out at home, work on them at local sewing circles and send the finished product directly to the initiative?s Michigan headquarters, where they will be packaged and shipped to Africa or one of the many other countries needing donations.
The dresses are then distributed via orphanages, schools and churches, and the children will receive them regardless of their beliefs.
In Norristown, after a dress or, in this case, many dresses are finished, they are taken to Steve?s, which pays to ship them to Nancy?s Notions, a sewing supply retailer based in Wisconsin, which in turn facilitates the shipping of the dresses to their final destinations. Nancy?s Notions alone has been responsible for transporting 63,000 dresses.
The Haws Avenue women recall that without a product to show, initial reaction to the project was tepid.
Hundley said they received a ?so what?? response when they first introduced the project to fellow parishioners.
The project gained steam only when the women publicly presented the first batch of dresses during a Sunday service in which the Rev. Dr. Anita Powell, district superintendent of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, conferred a blessing on them and the congregation was able to see the product of just three people?s labor.
?I got the idea to send letters out to the community to see if we could get other groups,? said Schlosser, the other founding member of the Haws Avenue group. ?And we?ve gotten three other churches and three or four individuals.?
They have been joined by Hearts and Hands, a group from the Church of the Good Shepherd in King of Prussia, Faith Church in Worcester and St. John?s Episcopal, also in Norristown.
Clothing drives are nothing new. And yet Little Dresses broadens the conventional understanding of charity by creating a more intimate relation between donor and recipient. The time spent crafting each dress deepens a person?s relationship to the donation and to the reality of the situation in poor countries.
?When I?m sewing, I envision the little girl,? Hundley said.
In the midst of a community struggling to make sense of the violence that surrounds it, campaigns like Little Dresses for Africa offer a temporary relief.
?There?s too much bad news in Norristown,? Hundley said.
Their church group plans to continue through the end of the year, and it is asking both for donations and more sewing volunteers.
And maybe then, one dress per little girl will become two.
?I was hoping they would give them two dresses, one they could wear and one they could wash, Hundley said. ?How are you going to wash your dress if you only have one??
Anyone who wishes to get involved may phone Schlosser at 610-539-1727 or 610-787-1660.
Source: http://montgomerynews.com/articles/2013/08/04/montgomery_life/news/doc51f709ea0d793821680002.txt
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