After strife in Haiti grounds planes, women seek other groups to help share “pillowcase clothes” with kids in need
They’ve been making the pillowcase dresses so long no one can quite remember when they started. As for how many they’ve made, it’s anyone’s guess.
These ladies are members of the Ashland UMC which is located in the South Carolina Annual Conference.
“When we got to 6,000 dresses, we quit counting,” June Suddeth, the organizer and leader of the group, says with a laugh.
The evidence of their labor fills her cozy house—boxes and bins of cheerful prints, artfully sewn with ribbons and colorful buttons, alongside their other labor of love, pillowcase shorts and matching tops, so the boys can have something to wear as well. In the sewing room, there’s space for several to sit and craft, while in the laundry room, clothes line one large table and spill over into boxes next to and beneath it.
Suddeth still remembers the first time she decided to make boy clothing in addition to the pillowcase dresses. She was watching television after a hurricane in Haiti, and she noticed a little boy onscreen.
“He didn’t have anything but a T-shirt on, and he kept pulling that T-shirt down, tugging it to cover himself, and I just felt so sorry for him,” Suddeth says, the other women nodding. “I just know that boy spoke to me, and God told me, ‘They’ve got to have pants.’”
Mary Lynn Felsberg tenderly sorts the shorts and matching T-shirts, her pet project. She found cheerful, bright patches on Amazon for a good price, and she irons those onto the shirts so the boys have something fun to wear, too.
“It’s so fun to see the pictures of the kids holding the clothes,” Felsberg says. “You say, ‘Oh, I did that one!’ That one little boy was grinning ear to ear, he was so happy.”
“That’s the reward for us, seeing that smile on the children’s faces,” Combs agreed.
Suddeth started the project decades ago. A longtime lover of the sewing arts, she wanted something practical, helpful and enjoyable to do after retirement, so she got some church friends together and started making clothing for kids in Haiti, which were regularly transported to the island nation thanks to a local connection. They get donations, then buy materials to craft what are dubbed pillowcase dresses, a relatively easy project that requires little cutting since the shape is already there. They also use curtains and other fabric—whatever they can find. For years, children in orphanages and elsewhere in Haiti received the dresses, and later shorts and tops, much to their delight.
But recent strife in that nation has made delivering the clothing dangerously impossible. Now the Ashland UMC women are reaching out to other mission groups, hoping they will bring the lovingly crafted clothing along with them when they journey to communities in need.
“I don’t care who gets them, what denomination, as long as they come get them and bring them to kids in need,” Suddeth says, gesturing to the boxes and bins of ready-to-go clothing all around them.
For now, the women continue to gather at Suddeth’s home every Wednesday, faithfully sewing the clothing and knowing that somehow, some way, God will provide a path for the clothing to get to the children.
It’s not all hard work. In fact, it doesn’t look like work at all.
The women also make other needed items from the leftover fabric, such as sanitary napkins. They know the need is great, and they do what they can.
“You can use your talent if you’ve got a talent,” Suddeth says.
excerpt from a story by Jessica Brodie, editor, South Carolina United Methodist Advocate newspaper
This story represents how United Methodist local churches through their Annual Conferences are living as Vital Congregations. A vital congregation is the body of Christ making and engaging disciples for the transformation of the world. Vital congregations are shaped by and witnessed through four focus areas: calling and shaping principled Christian leaders; creating and sustaining new places for new people; ministries with poor people and communities; and abundant health for all.
