WAIKOLOA VILLAGE — Each Wednesday, the hum of sewing machines can be heard in Waikoloa Village Association’s Community Room, where ladies intently add seams, hems, pockets and elastic straps to dozens of dresses. On the floor, finished clothing of varying colors and sizes are laid out.
WAIKOLOA VILLAGE — Each Wednesday, the hum of sewing machines can be heard in Waikoloa Village Association’s Community Room, where ladies intently add seams, hems, pockets and elastic straps to dozens of dresses. On the floor, finished clothing of varying colors and sizes are laid out.
Once a month, the group ships nearly 400 dresses they’ve made to impoverished girls in Africa, Asia, India, the Middle East, South America and other places around the world.
The dress a girl receives may be the only one she ever has.
“I have two groups that meet weekly and one that meets monthly,” said Lynn Greer, West Hawaii ambassador for Dress a Girl Around the World, a campaign under 501(c) 3 organization Hope 4 Women International, founded in 2006. “We have eight to 10 sewers here. One group meets in Kona on Mondays, and another monthly at Fabric and Quilting Delights with three to five sewers. Some sewers don’t sew with the group but pick up dress kits and drop off finished dresses at the most convenient location. There are about 35-40 sewers total working on the project in West Hawaii.”
The nondenominational independent Christian organization is based in Tempe, Arizona, with hundreds of chapters across the U.S.
The West Hawaii group sends out 380-390 dresses per month to impoverished girls in places like the Philippines, Thailand, Fiji, Malaysia, Cambodia, Uganda, Guatemala, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Vietnam and Nepal, to name a few.
“In 2015 we sent out 4,643 dresses,” Greer said. “This year, we are well on our way to sending out over 400 per month. The need is so great and the appreciation is awesome.”
She started the Waikoloa Village group in 2014, putting to use her love of sewing and children.
“I collect donated fabric and money to cover expenses for the group,” Greer said. “I cut the fabric into kits and supply the groups with enough kits to keep them sewing. Then I coordinate sending the dresses out with mission groups that will faithfully deliver them to the needy. I depend on the ladies continually to help me with details.”
Volunteers follow guidelines to sew the dresses that ultimately will be washed in rivers, creeks or watering holes, often scrubbed with rocks. Cotton fabric stands up best to these conditions, and specific measurements are followed since most girls who receive the dresses are malnourished.
Greer works closely with a network of other local organizations that make their work possible.
“One of the people I want to give credit to is Barbara Gardner, who works at University of Nations. She’s my primary contact to getting missionaries set up with dresses,” Greer said. “The Waikoloa Village Association provides us their community room to sew the dresses, and Living Stones Church in Kona provides their auditorium. A couple of thrift shops really support us well. At St. James in Waimea they save fabric for us and call me when they have a bag full of it. 4Good Thrift store in Kona also saves fabric as well as suitcases for me to send with a missionary.”
Rachel Eggum Cinader, founder of Dress A Girl Around the World, said, “We dream of a world in which every girl has at least one new dress. We want girls to know that they are worthy and respected, and loved by God.”
Some girls live in areas where they are easy targets for trafficking.
“Girls in some of the countries, like Cambodia, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya, are considered ‘less than human’ just by virtue of their sex, and they have no standing in their societies,” Cinader said. “Providing a new dress may change a young girl’s destiny. A pastor in one of the villages says that a girl wearing a new dress presents an appearance that she is well cared for and may discourage would-be predators.”
Addressing the need closer to home, Greer said she works with elementary schools, counselors and churches to identify needy girls in West Hawaii.
“I depend on people in key positions to determine the needs and deliver the dresses for us,” she said. “We just handed out over 100 dresses on the island in a ‘back to school blessing.’”
For those who aren’t sewers but still want to give to those in need, Dress a Girl accepts financial donations that are used to ship dresses to ministries, missionaries, individuals and humanitarian teams that hand deliver them to communities in various countries.
“University of Nations has carried many to our dresses in their missionary outreaches,” Greer said. “Many missionaries take R&R in Hawaii and churches may contact me to let me know that they can take dresses back to their field.”
In addition, Dress a Girl representatives take three trips a year to Uganda, while Hope 4 Kids International leads teams to several other countries each year.
On the mainland, Dress a Girl sends warm clothing to the Lakota children in South Dakota, clothing in areas of poverty such as Douglas, Arizona, dresses to Indian reservations in the Tucson, Arizona area, and quilts and clothing to missions in Appalachia.
Hope 4 Kids also trains women to make dresses within their own countries and gifts them with sewing machines, enabling them to dress their own girls.
In addition, a one-year Women’s Sponsorship Program provides a needy woman with training in math, English, reading and Biblical principles of business. The cost can be funded by any donor for a monthly fee of $36. The recipient and her family also receive gardening supplies and training on how to make a garden grow in their area. In 2013, 160 ladies graduated from the program.
Info: To volunteer or donate, contact Lynn Greer at 333-5249 or email gracelynngreer@gmail.com