R.F. Staples School students are hard at work making dresses out of pillowcases for a worldwide charity that provides clothing for girls ages two to 14.
Part of the school’s Fashion and Textiles program, the project will send 75, or more, dresses to the charity Little Dresses for Africa, though the ultimate destination of the clothes could be anywhere from Guatemala to Cambodia.
“We’re very fortunate in Canada to have so much,” said student Tyra Warwaryk. “The girls have such cute little smiles when they get the dresses. It’s nice to make people happy.”
Teacher Keltey Buchko said reception to the project has been overwhelming.
“My first worry was whether I would get enough pillowcases. So I put it out on social media and asked if anybody had any,” said Buchko.
“I’ve now got over 200 pillowcases sitting in my little stash. People from the schools, the community — we all went through our linen closets and found what we could. I got fabric, I got pillowcases, and I got cash donations. It was unbelievable.”
Buchko noted that in some of the countries the charity is targeting, girls are unable to go to school unless they have proper dresses, so the students are doing much more than just providing clothing.
She said students were benefiting both from the experience of helping the world beyond Westlock, as well as learning the basics of sewing.
“I went searching for easy sewing projects for the kids to do,” she said. “I looked at the pattern and what had to be done and I knew this was a project that most beginners can do. But I think it’s more important for the kids to learn to look beyond themselves.”
While Buchko was grateful for the support of the community, she noted she has enough pillowcases to last a few semesters at least.
“I have three sewing classes and my hope is to have each student make at least one,” she said. “Some students will make two or more. We’ve got Grades 7 through 12 working on this.”
Little Dresses for Africa is a United States based charity that was founded in 2008 by Rachel O’Neill after she took a trip to Uganda and Kenya for her 50th birthday.
During the trip, she was touched by the difficulty that little girls in impoverished communities had in getting ahead. Since then, the organization has sent over eight million dresses to kids in need.
