CHANGING OUR MEETING DAY

EVQ QUILT SHOW

I hope you had an opportunity to visit the Emerald Valley Quilters quilt show at the Fairgrounds this past weekend.  There were wonderful quilts, fun vendors, educational demos, a garment fashion show, and the always popular small quilt auction.  EVQ generously gave me space to set up an information booth for Days for Girls and I got to meet so many new interested (and interesting) people while telling about what we do.

I think we can expect some new folks to join us--which of course means we can help more girls receive an education.

Thank you to all of you who stopped by, shared stories, took things to work on, put your name on the email list, and generously donated to support giving girls back 60 days a year!  I put that cash--over $200--in our chapter account via the current Revlon Challenge fundraiser on Crowdrise.  Our international organization is hoping to be one of the top 5 fundraising non-profits to win the challenge money--$25,000 up to $1,000,000! DFGI is currently in 4th place.  If you haven't donated yet and want to make a tax-deductible contribution to our chapter, the challenge goes through October 26.  Our chapter receives all the money, but the donations count in DFGI's total for prize purposes.  Any money they win helps with setting up enterprises in the Third World.  More girls kept in school and participating in life every day!

One of our supporters emailed a few friends after making a donation, telling them that this was a great cause that she supported, and suggesting that they might like to make a contribution also.  Several did, and one made these comments I'd like to share with you: "This problem I learned about in 1993 when I did Hurricane Andrew relief in Homestead.  1/4 of all women under 50 are menstruating all the time.  It is as important as bread and water and clothing. Thanks for what you're doing."

250 KITS

As I mentioned in the last post, we've sent off 250 kits which will be part of a batch of 5000 going to refugees in Uganda.  I can't imagine the horror of being a refugee . . . a situation  made even worse by not having any way to deal with your period.  Patty generously packed her car with 250 kits and transported them to the team in Olympia, where the father of a headquarters employee picked them up and drove them the rest of the way to headquarters in Lynden, WA.  We have the underwear size marked on the Ziploc inside each kit, and then pack them in these trash bags, one size per bag.  This is what 250 kits look like.  Those bags are too slippery to want to stack!

IN SEPTEMBER

At our workdays, we typically each work on one facet of making a kit.  Pressing fabric, stitching casings on bags, serging flannel,  glue-basting labels, rotary cutting fabric, topstitching pockets, cutting out shields on the Accuquilt, etc.  I ask people to tell me when one task starts to get boring, so we can shift them to something else.  We got a lot done in September.

I love to have pictures of our wonderful volunteers on the workdays, and having the background be the quilts Mary Jo and Don display at Our Sewing Room make them extra special.  PLEASE remind me to take some shots every month!!

OCTOBER 16

October 16th is our next and final Sunday workday.  We will be at Our Sewing Room from 10 to 5, and are hoping for a good turnout.  This month we will be sharing space with the people making quilts for the NICU babies.

SUNDAYS

October will be the last month that we meet on a Sunday.  This is good news for those of you who find Sundays don't work well for you.  Stay tuned for an update on when we'll be gathering in November.  If you're not currently on our email list, you might want to sign up at the October 16 meeting.  I'll of course put the info on this blog too.

Thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of girls and women around the world.