Mission to help girls in poverty

Women from our church today started a three-week project to make dresses as part of the dress a Girl Around the World mission.

Linda Wakefield organized this project late last year after learning about a similar project at Wesley by the Sea, a retired pastor’s housing community in Wells.

Women from our church will be making dresses from 10 a.m.-noon every Saturday through Feb. 13.

Some dresses were made before today’s session and by the end of this first Saturday, 20 dresses had been completed or nearly completed.

To date, Dress A Girl Around the World, a program of Hope 4 Women International, has delivered 300,000 dresses to 81 countries.

The Dress a Girl Around the World web site explains, “By providing a new dress, you may well be changing a young girl’s destiny. Village pastors tell us that a girl wearing a new dress provides an appearance that she is well cared for and may discourage would-be predators.”

Hope 4 Women International and its Dress a Girl Around the World mission operates out of Tempe, Arizona, and was founded in 2006 after a mission trip to Uganda.

Our church is hoping to make at least 50 dresses by Feb. 13, but the Rev. Ruth Morrison was even more optimistic when Linda Wakefield obtained “Dress a Girl Around the World” labels for 100 dresses.

Thank you to all of the women who have already participated in this project and also to those who still will!

Click here for more information about the international Dress a Girl Around the World project: Dresses