Finishing up 2015

I was impressed that we were able to have even a skeleton crew at our December 20th workday, so close to Christmas.  A baker's dozen of us worked on non-construction tasks, such as pressing, quality-checking and folding liners, folding underwear, cutting out shields, affixing snaps to sewn shields, sewing labels on bags, etc.

We have a batch of 75 kits going to Kenya in early January.  My goal is always to have all the bags in a distribution be made of different fabrics.  These kits are of such a personal nature, I like to reduce the chances of the recipients getting them mixed up.  I think we're going to meet that goal this time around.

Thank you so much for all of your interest and support for Days for Girls this year.  Some accomplishments for 2015:

We have a very interesting and fun group of folks who have found us, one way or another, who gather to work at Our Sewing Room each month.  Please join us when you can!  A few wonderful women drive an hour or more each way to volunteer.

We sent kits and components to girls and women in 4 African countries--Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

The status for our local group has been changed from team to Chapter!

We participated successfully in fundraisers via Crowdrise, and raised significant dollars from our generous supporters to purchase supplies.

We will continue to meet at Our Sewing Room on the third Sunday of each month.  I so appreciate Mary Jo and Don being willing to open up the wonderful facility for us!  We are extremely lucky to have such a perfect room to work in.

My goal for our chapter for 2016 is to focus on quality, each of us checking our work to ascertain that it meets all of the guidelines.  I'd like all the life-changing kits that come from our Chapter to be as close to perfect as humanly possible.  We want every one of these components to be beautiful, well-sewn, the right size,  and in suitable patterns and colors.  Should we ever have to make a choice, it would definitely be quality over quantity.

Here's a short video you might enjoy.