COUNTY WIDE TH U RS DA Y , M A Y 19 , 20 16
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STITCHED WITH LOVE
Millington-based Little Dresses Sewing Mission makes clothes for kids in need By KATRINA J.E. MILTON kmilton@shawmedia.com
M
ILLINGTON – One night during the summer of 2010, Sharon Scott had a difficult night sleeping. Her husband, Kirk Scott, pastor of Millington United Methodist Church, recently had given a sermon about the difficult lives of children in poverty around the world. Wanting to help children by giving them clothes to wear, Scott created the Little Dresses Sewing Mission. “The idea of starting a group came to me one night, and I couldn’t go to bed knowing that there are so many children in the world without clothes to wear,” Sharon Scott said. “I spoke to people in the church about it, and we created a group that anybody in the community could join. We are not a church group, we are a community group.” Little Dresses meets from noon to 3 p.m. the first and third Thursday of every month at the Millington United Methodist Church, 200 N. Orleans St. in Millington. The group is nondenominational, with women from different faiths and different towns working together to make clothing for underprivileged children around the world. The group first sent 119 dresses and 13 pairs of pants to the nonprofit organization Little Dresses for Africa in Michigan. After the first package, the nonprofit recommended sending packages directly to countries in need. Since the Little Dresses group formed in the summer of 2010, the group has made 1,173 dresses, ranging in size from 3 to 14. They also have sent toys and dolls with the dresses. Their clothing has been sent to countries around the world, including Africa, Haiti and the
Photos by Katrina J.E. Milton - kmilton@shawmedia.com
ABOVE: Sue Williamson, Irene Brown, Sharon Anderson, Sharon Scott, Susan Littlejohn, Van Mathre and Nancy Larson show some of the dresses they have made as part of the Little Dresses Sewing Mission. RIGHT: Sharon Scott, founder of the Little Dresses Sewing Mission, organizes a storage bin full of completed dresses during a group meeting on April 21. Little Dresses was created as a way to make and send dresses to impoverished girls around the world. Since the group was formed in 2010, 1,173 dresses have been made. Philippines. Dresses also have been sent to a mission in Kentucky Appalachia and an Indian Reservation in South Dakota. In November, missionaries from the Community Christian Church in Yorkville took 70 dresses to Haiti. The group now has 168 completed dresses that are ready to be distributed. They are looking for a missionary to take the dresses
with them as they travel. “It costs about $140 to mail a box to Africa, and we usually have no idea if it gets there,” Scott said. “By giving it to a short-term missionary that’s traveling, we know that it will be hand-delivered and that it’s going where it should.”
See LITTLE DRESSES, page 5