This is my oldest daughter, Cora.
She is 13 years old and decided that she wanted to sew skirts for orphans in Liberia.
Why Liberia? We know a woman that grew up in Liberia, but had to flee her home because of much civil unrest. She fled to a small village and the people there kept her alive until she could finally make it to the U.S. As a thank you to this village, she started an orphanage. It is called “Faith Center” and has given 60 beautiful children a place to be loved, sheltered and protected. The “Faith Center” has helped these children enormously, but they still need so very much! Every day they walk 45 minutes to a nearby stream to get water. They only have enough money for one meal a day and until recently they didn’t even have bowls and spoons to eat with.
Cora and I were touched by this story and we wanted to help these children, especially the girls. We wanted to give each of them something beautiful, feminine and made especially for them. So we decided to make each of them a skirt.
We put out a call to friends and family for donations to help us purchase the material and lots of people pitched in to help out! A HUGE thank you and BIG HUGS to all those loved ones that donated.
After we gathered the money, Cora and I headed off to the fabric store.
We made 36 skirts and we wanted each one to be different. We felt like it was important that each girl would have a skirt that was uniquely hers. We ended up buying fabric at three different fabric stores, but we found our favorites at Hobby Lobby. Above is a picture of Cora at the cutting counter. Who knew it took so long to cut 27 different bolts?
Then began the sewing. Luckily for us, we had some helpers. The young women from our church spent one Wednesday evening helping us sew. Cora and I did the cutting and the prep work, then we had all the young women at different stations: ironing, sewing, pinning and cutting elastic. It was so crazy busy that I completely forgot to get pictures, but I did snap a couple at the end.
Thank you lovely ladies!
After our Wednesday night activity, we had 2 skirts complete and 34 part way done. Cora and I spent another 15 to 20 hours sewing skirts together, but we finally finished!
To sew the skirts we used the simple skirt tutorial
from “Dana Made It”. If you have never seen Dana’s blog, it is fabulous! It is full of simple, beautiful tutorials. She has quite a knack for explaining things clearly with lots of gorgeous pictures.
The skirt is quite simple and can be whipped up in a jiffy if you are not making 36 🙂
We heard the girls like bright colors, so hopefully they will enjoy all of our lovely prints.
Another big thank you to to a couple of Cora’s friends who came over to our house and helped stuff elastic.
The skirts are light, bouncy and fun.
Hopefully they will be loved and well worn.
I am so proud of you, Cora, for taking on this project and for having a desire to make this world just a little bit better.
This is fabulous! You and Cora did a wonderful job and what a beautiful way to serve. I love that you got the young women involved too. Wish I could have popped in to your wednesday night activity and sewed along with you :). And 36 skirts?? Impressive!
What a wonderful outreach to those so much in need! God bless you all for your fabulous work. I know all the girls in Liberia will love these and I see a love that will certainly carry over into other important works for a lifetime.
What an amazing girl she is! Wish Tabatha had been there to help too!
Your daughter is beautiful inside out! Wonderful project you did there! And the skirts look really pretty! I hope one day my daughter will like to sew as well!
Yay for Cora! The skirts look so fun and colorful. I'm sure they will be loved!
What an awesome and inspiring young lady! Many praises to you Cora.
Looks fabulous, I’m inspired, thanks Cora
Where do you send the completed skirts?
Hi Evenlyn, We sent these skirts to an orphanage called "Faith Center" in Liberia. Unfortunately there isn’t really a mailing address. We sent them in a huge crate with other things that the orphanage needed.
What a great project ! In case you didn’t know, to save running the elastic thru with a safety pin, you can sew the elastic into a circle. You can fold the top down and stitch the elastic in at the same time. I usually use a zipper foot.
Fabulous! Thanks for the tip 🙂
Just brilliant! Well done. Thank you for your kindness, I’m sure you made a lot of young people very happy! Xxx
Rachel, Thank you so much for your kind words! It really means a lot to me!
I just came across this blog while I was looking for shoebox ideas for orphans. Myself and several others help support an orphanage in Uganda. They would definitely benefit and appreciate a project like this for their orphanage if you are so inclined or anyone else reading this. Currently they have about a 160 children their boys and girls.
So proud of you Tessiefay. My youngest grand girl is 12. Has been sewing since 8. Thank to your Mom for grooming you to follow your dreams
Thank you so much!
I’m going to use the tutorial you linked to make a skirt for both of my daughters & for another young girl at our church with a difficult family situation. Thank you.
How wonderful!
Where did you mail them? I’m working with a women’s shelter and we’d like to make some skirts to send to help out.
I’m so sorry I no longer have contact with this organization. I hope you can find somewhere to do good with your sewing!
What a wonder,, Unselfish project.
I’d love to make some for the “Operation Christmas Child” boxes. Starting now would give me time to make some myself and plan a few work day sessions for our women at our Church.
Do you have measurements for the different sizes. That would be so helpful!
You have been blessed for your caring heart.
KC
I would love to help by sewing skirts, or anything for your charity.
I have alot of fabric ,so would love to help.
Please let me know if you are still donating and how I can get involved!
Hi Cathy! I’m unfortunately not donating here anymore but I would love to hear of any other charities that you may know of!