Christmas Bags #4 - From Dress A Girl Australia

Too late in the night to acknowledge donations. Number 4 on the list is from me (Dress A Girl Australia) with these 6 hand puppets and 5 big-eyed monsters which are owls really. 

Eleven more kiddies will be hugging a softie soon.

Thank You and Happy Thanksgiving Day!

To everyone who supported Dress A Girl Australia in 2013, thank you so much and happy thanksgiving day!

Parcels Received

Good Morning everyone! I really am flat out these days with sorting and packing so all my parcels can leave Australia before the 10th of December. I am also busy making handmades to sell to take advantage of the buying season so need your patience in acknowledging donations received. Unless parcels received are for Christmas distribution (i.e. christmas bags and soft toys) all parcels will be taken cared of as soon as I am done with the packing or when i can find a spare time. Thank you.

Iron-on Labels no longer available

Just to let everyone know that iron-on labels are no longer available as I find them more expensive than the sew-on labels. Those who requested for iron-on the past week will now be receiving the sew-on labels instead. If you do not want to attach the sew-on labels because you have already finish sewing your dresses, when you send over your dresses, can you please send back as well the sew-on labels and I will try to find someone to sew the labels to your dresses. Sewing labels to finish dresses is not really such a big task and it will be a big help on my part if you  could use the sew-on labels but if it is too much to ask and you do not want to do it then just return the labels please.

Thank you.

Information on Clothing Sponsorship Program

Good Morning everyone. Lately I have been receiving emails enquiring about the Clothing Sponsorship program for South Africa. I will be releasing guidelines about this campaign in early January just to make sure that donated items are meeting the requirements of what the foundation needs. And because I will be limited in the number of kilos of clothing that I can send, donations have to meet the guidelines if anyone wants to donate. 

Thank you and thank you to those who have shown interest to the program.

Christmas Bags #3 - from Vanya

Number 3 on the list of Christmas Bags and 10 of them from Vanya Bryant. And about 2 months ago I received these cute creatures from her so these are definitely going inside each of these bags. Here are the christmas bags -

and here are the cute creatures sent about 2 months ago -

Thank you so much Vanya for supporting Dress A Girl Australia's Christmas Charity Drive for the kids of CDO Philippines. Much appreciated.

Donation Acknowledgement FY13/11 #158 - From Vanya

Number 158 on the list is a parcel of assorted goodies from Vanya Bryant. Looks like Vanya has been keeping herself busy with 'hot stuff'. 'Hot stuff' great for Dress A Girl Australia's upcoming winter collection for South Africa. I just love creating names and creating slogans for my charity drive campaigns. I think it makes it more attractive to get some kind of support and mobilizes 'like-minded' people. :-)

Anyway, here are the contents of Vanya's parcel this time - I will be writing a separate acknowledgement for the christmas bags.

And I also had a surprise inside the parcel - a handmade christmas ornament -

To Vanya, thank you so much for your support in 2013. Thank you for your kindness and generosity, for helping make this world a better place. It is so much appreciated. Have a very lovely Christmas and a heartfelt thank you for the pretty Christmas ornament.

Christmas Bags #2 - From Jamie and daughter Amelia

Christmas bags are starting to arrive in Sydney and number 2 on the list are ten bags with cute softies inside from Jamie Gwiazda and her daughter Amelia. Another 10 girls with big smiles on their faces when they get to receive the Christmas bags with simple contents of a dress, an undie, perhaps a headscarf, a small softie and a lolly but full of love.

A wholehearted thank you to Jamie and her daughter Amelia. Thank you for your kindness and generosity. Much appreciated.

A little bit of this...a little bit of that...Updates for the week 23-Nov-2013

I know how communication as a tool is very important in perhaps everything that we do. It can either make you or break you. Sometimes I do postings directly in Dress A Girl Australia's facebook page with the intention of posting it here in my blog as well.....if I can remember to do it which I think I should so everyone would know. :-)
Anyway, here is a summary of the FB postings I did this week to keep you updated - 

23-Nov-2013 -
             #1 - Dec 3, Tuesday has been designated as 'Giving Day' in the US, Canada and 
                other parts of the world. I would like to think that we here in Australia can also
                make this day as a 'Giving Day' and make this an opportunity to give back 
                something to the world...help make a difference to lots of disadvantaged 
                people. A good day to start the giving season of Christmas. So how about we 
                all start to think on what to do and what to give on Tuesday.

          #2 - Delivery services to Tacloban Philippines from Australia have not been 
                restored yet so I cant send my parcels. Deliveries are only up to Manila which
                will not do any good since the parcels need to end up in Tacloban. I will wait 
                until things get back to normal a little bit and my contact hopefully settled back
                to normal routines then I send the parcels and hopefully before Christmas. And
                I also plan to make a collection from work (some have offered to help) which I
                can use or ask my contact to buy some food and distribute to families on 
                Christmas day. Fingers crossed.

22-Nov-2013 -
          Thinking that I might exceed the 45 kilos for my South Africa parcel, I decided to             request for another concession authority form last Tuesday and I received the form           today.

21-Nov-2013 - 
          #1 - For those who are making Christmas bags, please make sure I get to receive
                them by the last week of Nov or first week of Dec max to give me ample time 
                to sort and pack. Thank you

          #2 - We can do it !! We can make it happen !!
                 If you want to help build a well in Kiriga Uganda and give hope through clean                    water, please click  on the link below -

            #3 - Due to the number of undies I am getting and have sorted them by sizes to                       help quicken the packing of a dress with an undie, am no longer able to                           identify which undies have been donated by whom. For everyone's info.                           Thanks!

20-Nov-2013 -
           Good Morning everyone! In reply to the emails i have been getting lately, want to
           reiterate that there is no need to rush sewing dresses and sending them over to
           me. I have an ample supply of both dresses and shorts and what is needed for the
           rest of the year is fully allocated. Nothing to do with the cost of sending as i have 
           already budgeted for these parcels but i do still have quite a supply. Besides, it is 
           difficult to send over the Christmas period. I will start scheduling again
           distributions in April of next year so please hold on to your donations until next
           year to avoid inconveniences at the post office. No new donations received
           (excluding the christmas bags and toys) will also allow me to clean my spare room
           that i have been using for the dresses. Thank you.

19-Nov-2013 -
          yes never give up even when am running low on funds -

          "If we are demoralized, sad and only complain, we’ll not solve our problems. If we
           only pray for a solution, we’ll not solve our problems. We need to face them, to
           deal with them without violence, but with confidence - and never give up. If you
           adopt a non-violent approach, but are also hesitant within, you’ll not succeed. You
           have to have confidence and keep up your efforts - in other words, never give up.
                                                          ~ Dalai Lama

More dresses are arriving

Yes, more dresses are on their way. Check out this bunch of 31 dresses from Jill, Elaine, Vicky and Haze, four retired friends from South Australia who wanted to help out dressing the less fortunate girls around the world and at the same time have some fun.

Thank you Ladies. I hope you did not have a difficult time hanging these dresses for picture taking. Looking forward to receiving these dresses. Thank you.

Christmas Bags #1 - 11 Bags from Mo

It is time to acknowledge Christmas Bags before they get packed. The first on the list are 11 christmas bags from Mo O'Brien. Just what I need which would fit a small dress, a headscarf and an undie. I might request my aunt who will be distributing these bags on Christmas day to purchase some lollies and add 1 lolly inside the bag. Am sure the lolly would bring a bigger smile to the kid's face :-)

Thank you so much, Mo! Much, much appreciated.

Donation Acknowledgement FY13/11 #157 - Dresses and shorts from Heather

Number 157 on the list is a parcel of 9 t-shirt dresses and 15 pairs of shorts from Heather Harris. The t-shirt dresses would be good for locations where culture requires for kids to wear dresses with sleeves.

To Heather, thank you so much for your kindness and generosity. Thank you for your unwavering support of Dress A Girl Australia. It is much appreciated. Thank you.

Donation Acknowledgement FY13/11 #156 - 3 dresses from Keren

Number 156 on the list is a parcel of 3 dresses from Keren Jacobs.

To Keren, thank you for supporting Dress A Girl Australia in its campaign to dress girls around the world. Thank you for helping make a world where every little girl gets to own a dress a reality especially in disadvantaged locations and not just imaginary. It is much appreciated. Thank you.

Donation Acknowledgement FY13/11 #155 - 26 Pairs from Kristen

I still am really busy sorting and packing but decided to squeeze in tonight a few donation acknowledgements for donations received for the month of November before I get drowned again with unopened parcels and before I send some of the items off in a few parcels am about to send. :-) 

Anyway, the first on the list came from Kristen Purvis and #155 on the list. 26 pairs of socks which is great to include in my 'Clothing Sponsorship' program - Winter edition for South Africa. Early next year I will be reviewing what I already have and what items I still would need and the way things are going, looks like I almost have everything I need.

To Kristen, thank you so much for the socks. It is much appreciated and am sure the kiddies of South Africa will enjoy wearing them to keep their feet warm during their winter. Thank you.

17 t-shirts closes my South Africa collection

These 17 t-shirts donated by Elaine Klein closes my South Africa Collection. From this time on my focus would be in completing the sorting and packing of all dresses, t-shirts and pairs of shorts and weigh up the parcels to make sure that I do not exceed 45 kilos. 
Here are the 17 t-shirts kindly donated by Elaine -

To Elaine, thank you so much for the t-shirts, for responding so quickly in my call for t-shirts for South Africa. Thank you for your kindness and generosity. It is much appreciated.

Dress Distribution #46 - 25 dresses for QCCT

This is an unscheduled distribution. Am donating 25 dresses to the QCCT team who are on their way to the Philippines to work on their project in Valenzuela Bulacan Metro Manila. This parcel includes 25 undies, 9 headbands and 16 headscarves. 

This is the parcel -

and these are the 25 dresses in the parcel including headscarves and headbands -

made possible by the following donors -
1. Toni Kirkpatrick
2. Heather Harris
3. Fabric donated by Sarah Fraser and sewn by Evelyn Smart
4. Monika Osvald for the 16 headscarves
5. Vanya Bryant for the 9 headbands
6. Ladies of Kapunda Sewing group for the 25 undies

To see larger images of the dresses, please click here. For more details on this distribution (and also at a later stage when feedback is received) please click here or click on the special 'Dress Distribution' tab which you can find at the top of this page.

Thank you so much to all the donors who made this distribution possible. Thank you for helping make this world a better place through your kindness and generosity. It is much appreciated.

100 Thongs off to Wilcannia

I still have a few parcels to publish with donors and I think I will only be able to do this once all the parcels have left my humble abode. I still have not finish identifying the donors of the dresses and needs time to be able to do it. Anyway, this one is easy as I have a ready list of donors.

I had the perfect boxes of 50 pairs per box of thongs and off they went to Wilcannia this afternoon two weeks ahead of schedule. (Looks like my schedule of parcel send-offs is not working. :-))

Here are the parcels with 50 pairs per box -

the thongs -

and here is the list of the 'More than a mile' with thongs' donors who made these 2 parcels possible and who made it more possible for the children of Wilcannia NSW to walk...hop...jump...skip...run for more than a mile without feeling too much heat from the ground -

1. Kaylee and Kate Healy
2. Margie Burke
3. Candace Quach
4. Sue-Ellen Cox
5. Gaylene Herrmann
6. Two Bettys' Betty Barrett and Betty Paull
7. Maureen O'Brien
8. Cassandra Biadacz
9. Agnes Kwong and friend Candy
10. Jenny F. 
11. Joan Lui
12. Jo Haesook
13. Yetman
14. Dress A Girl Australia

To see larger images of the thongs, please click here. For more details on this distribution (and also at a later stage when feedback is received) please click here or click on the special 'Dress Distribution' tab which you can find at the top of this page.

My wholehearted thank you to all the donors who made this drive so much a success. Thank you so much.

Feedback from Wilcannia

Received this email today from my friend Belinda Ritchie who is moving back to Sydney and leaving Wilcannia. I thought I would share it with everyone -

I look forward to coordinating making a difference in Wilcannia with whoever is going to replace Belinda and wish her all the best for the future. Thank you Belinda for giving me the opportunity to make a difference with the children of Wilcannia.

To access a readable version of this email, please click here.