United Church sends pillowcase dresses to children in Haiti

 

Hélène-Marie Halloran

Saturday morning, March 28, the United Church collected an impressive  number of hand-made pillowcase dresses that will soon be on their way to children in need in Haiti. For the past five years, members of the church and local seamstresses have been weaving recycled milk bags into large bed mats for the children of Haiti and last year, they introduced these beautiful dresses made from pillow cases. This year, these women, with extra help from the Ottawa Quilting Club, have added boys’ breeches, made from t-shirts, to their products. Sponsoring this mission is the Fondation Solution, an organization founded three years ago by Musset and Gail Pierre-Jérôme. 

Each year, the couple travels to Jérémie, a town in Haiti where Mr. Pierre-Jérôme's uncle is a retired bishop. The "Paroisse Sainte-Marie" serves as the local school where children walk barefoot more than an hour's distance from home to attend with their shoes in hand to avoid ruining them. 

Fondation Solution makes great attempts to personally bring these bed mats, dresses, shorts, shoes and school supplies to these students who live in villages with no electricity or running water. Other sponsors include Cathy and John Dubé who will be bringing dresses to an orphanage in Port-au-Prince as well as Barb and Fred Howard who have already brought dresses with them while on their trip to Mexico.

 

The dresses and bed mats cost almost nothing to make which has made it possible to easily produce large quantities. Since it began the project, the United Church has been able to send 550 bed mats and 515 dresses to children in Haiti and Mexico. Some bed mats have also been sent to the Dominican Republic.