2017: 166 dresses and counting

Congratulations to the 15 women from our church and friends who created 166 dresses in five weeks for the national Dress-a-Girl Around the World mission. That’s 50 more dresses than the women completed last year and it’s not done yet. After the 166 dresses were handed over for the regional distribution center, nine more dresses came in!

The Dress-a-Girl mission around the country has created 750,000 dresses since 2009 and sent them to 82 countries. The program expects to go over 1 Million dresses by 2018.

Coordinated by Linda Wakefield and Judith Hill, this year’s group of dress-makers from our church included Linda Webster, Rainy Hirdler, Lili Acheson, Ann Underdown, Jaymie Chamberlin and two friends — Paula Pierce-Anthony and Sue St. Onge — Beverly Merrill, Jean Meyer, Shirley Maxwell-Royall, Barbara Knowles, Kathie Hackett, Gail Parker, Mariah Parker and Rachel Henderson — a woman from another church who heard about the mission.

In just the first two months of 2017, groups from Southern Maine have created 600 dresses for the Dress-a-Girl mission that have been sent to Bangladesh, Haiti, Vietnam and Cuba.

On Feb. 19, at the completion of this year’s dress-making for our church, Judith Hill addressed the congregation and gave this beautiful tribute to the woman who worked so hard to finish these dresses:

“For all of you who have sewn, imagine kneeling before a little girl in Senegal, where some of our dresses have gone. You are holding a beautiful dress that you made with love. You say to the little one, ‘I made this dress just for you because you are precious to me and to God.’ Imagine as you drop the dress over her head that the shame she feels is dropping away. She lifts her chin toward the heavens — allowing her to stand tall.”

Dress-a-Girl is an international organization of women gathering to make dresses for little and big girls who do not own clothes, little alone a dress. When girls in underdeveloped countries wear a dress, especially a dress that has a label on it, the leaders feel like they look like they are cared for by an organization and thereby keeps them safer from abduction as use by slaves, from abuse, or being preyed upon by men.

For more information on the Dress-a-Girl Around the World mission, click here: Dress-a-Girl