LP_Girls_Dresses_02.jpg
LP_Girls_Dresses_05.jpg
LP_Girls_Dresses_06.jpg
LP_Girls_Dresses_09.jpg
LP_Girls_Dresses_10.jpg
Sarah Vail’s efforts to make dresses for girls around the world came about through happenstance. She heard about Hope 4 Girls through a friend who had attended an event about 10 years ago at the high school, where people had gathered to make dresses for the organization. She looked it up online, and discovered they are an international nonprofit whose mission it is to put a new dress on every girl in roughly 90 countries. They go to expected places like Africa, but also Israel and Russia as well. Hope 4 Girls has two aims: One is to give the girls self-esteem and self-worth with a new dress, and the other is to protect them from human trafficking. Vail explains, “If they have a nice dress and it has a label on the outside with the name of the organization, that gives the girls some kind of protection, because then someone thinks, ‘Oh, if they are taken, they are going to be missed.’” Learning about Hope 4 Girls motivated Vail to action because, as she says, “Human trafficking is a subject I’m really interested in. I really want people to know that it’s not just in other countries, it’s here too, and it’s big. The whole cause is very near and dear to my heart. I have two daughters, and it’s unimaginable that this happens to girls in the world.” So, four years ago, when she became the family and consumer science teacher at the Edgartown School, Vail got her fifth graders to help out. She showed them videos and talked about the endeavor to “gather some excitement and steam for them to make these dresses.” They took the dresses as far as they could, but by year’s end, they weren’t complete. “I kept them for a year, figuring I’d finish them or I would get teachers to help,” Vail says.”I ended up meeting Aase Jones from Vineyard Haven, who wanted to embellish them, and they were beautiful. She put a lot of lace on them, and they were amazing.” Vail sent about 30 off, and the organization was ecstatic. She put the remaining unfinished dresses in a box and promptly forgot about them. It was just before last summer, when Vail was packing up her classroom, that she came upon the box in her closet. She reached out to the West Tisbury library about hosting a gathering to finish up the dresses. It was held over the weekend. The women who came out to help embellish and complete the dresses all said they came because they wanted to support the cause, like other women who support the project from across the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Scotland, and Uganda. Hope 4 Women International, which has distributed more than 450,000 dresses, states on its website, “We care about the world’s future women. So we imagined a world where every little girl owns at least one dress. We believe that every girl deserves the dignity of owning at least one dress. We started with pillowcase dresses, and have since advanced to more trendy styles, made from sturdy cotton fabrics to ensure that the dress will not only bring great joy, but will be well-made and sturdy enough to last for a very long time.” Vail says she would like to do the project every year. Sounds like important work. You can learn more at h4wi.org/ministry/dress-girl-around-world.