Kits distributed at Kokwa Primary School

Our dedicated volunteers, new and returning,  braved pretty steady rains to work at Our Sewing Room on October 26th, preparing and sewing flannel liners.  We ended up with a few dozen totally completed, and a few hundred more in various stages of construction.  With eight liners included in each kit, these are the items we need to build our inventory of.

In my book, the highlight of the day was when Gwen Meyer of Friends of Kenya Schools and Wildlife told us about the distribution of our kits at the Kokwa Primary School in Kenya.  We are delighted to have played a part in helping the girls access and benefit from their education.

Gwen said that "they were ecstatic, not just with the kits, but from the knowledge that you are aware of the challenges they face and that you did something to support their own efforts to learn."

Please enjoy the beautiful photos, generously shared with us by Gwen and her granddaughter Sienna:

Adults explaining the kits to the girls

Showing individual items from the kit

How the shield snaps into the panties

Attentive students, grades 4 to 8

A student volunteer shows what she's learned

Classmates enjoying her demo.

The kits are distributed.  Girls chose by underwear size and bag fabric.
We try to use our prettiest fabrics for the bags.

Girls showing the kits they selected

We are currently working on a request for 200 more kits Gwen will take to other schools in Kenya in January.  We have a long ways to go, so any and all help is much appreciated.  

Our next work day is Sunday, November 16th, 10 to 4 at Our Sewing Room.

Our First Sew-a-thon: fait accompli!

About a dozen of us gathered on Saturday to celebrate the International Day of the Girl by sewing for Days for Girls.We had some new folks and some regulars, some all day, some for a few hours.  We had flannel, washcloth, underpants, thread and soap donations too!

What a great group of dedicated volunteers!  Thanks to all who contributed yesterday:  Jenny, 2 Pats, Virginia, Carolyn, Kathy, Nicki, Michelle, Sue, Susan, Sheila, Michelle, Lela, and Donna from afar.  As usual, it was a very interesting group of women, and we had a good time.  I got so into it, that I didn't document it with all the photos as I would have liked to.  We need a few more folks to bring cameras or smart phones (and remember to use them!) and send me their photos. 

We concentrated on T&T liners, ending up with 40 completed, 41 sewn and ready for turning, and hundreds more ready to sew.  Some   of those went home with volunteers.

Our other focus was serging the sides of probably over 200 bags, now ready for labels, pressing and sewing.  All of these went home with volunteers!

The end of the day rolled around too fast--I wasn't ready to quit.  I packed up my car,  and in the evening, popped a DVD in and worked on  T&T liners for 3+ more hours.

The nice thing about October is that it has TWO Days for Girls workdays at Our Sewing Room.  Our next gathering is Sunday, October 26, 10am-4pm.  Our Sewing Room has sewing machines and sergers available for us to use, but several of us prefer the familiarity of our own machines, if they're not too heavy to tote.  Bringing your own sharp scissors and maybe pin container is a good idea.

If you plan to join us for the first time in two weeks, I strongly recommend that you go to the DFGI website to watch the videos and read the instructions of how to make the different kit components.  If you've come before, but you're wanting to learn how to make one of the components that you haven't tried yet, please watch the video first.  I'm always there to help, but seeing the video before I show you the steps is strongly encouraged.

If you haven't already signed up for our local Days for Girls email list and would like to, please send me an email at dfgeugene@gmail.com.