Dress A Girl Around the World-DSM

Are you planning a mission trip? We think every girl needs at least one dress and that what we do - make dresses! We have dresses Small to Xlarge that we would love for you to take with you on your next mission trip. Contact us at [email protected]

Dress A Girl Work Day on Monday, July 24th 10-3 at Prairie Creek Church (formally known as Grimes UMC, in Grimes.

Join us for our 2nd Annual Dress A Girl-Des Moines Sew-A-Thon on Saturday, June 17th 10-2 pm at Grimes-Prairie Creek Church. Bring your sewing machine or use one of ours and let's sew up a storm!

Dress A Girl Sew A Thon
Grimes UMC
June 17, 2023.

Reminder--join us for our work day at Grimes United Methodist Church in the gymn on Monday, Feb 27 10 am - 3pm. Don't sew, that's okay, you can help check in and quality check finished dresses, cut fabric for kits, etc.

We are having a Sew-a-thon on Saturday, June 18th at Grimes UMC (801 W 1st St, Grimes). Let's see how many dresses we can make to send around the world!

You can send a message directly to Dress A Girl Around the World-DSM.

Dress A Girl Around the World-DSM updated their website address.

Presented check to Grimes UMC for so generously providing us with a place for workdays and storage, money to be sent to Garden Gate Ranch; chose two women to support this coming year, one in memory of our dear DAG friend, Myrna Baird. Potluck lunch, games and gift exchange -- Back to work making dresses for little girls in 2022!

Dress A Girl Around the World-DSM updated their business hours.

It's now easier to email Dress A Girl Around the World-DSM

We make dresses for little girls and send them all over the world! Our "Dress A Girl Des Moines" workdays are the 3rd Monday of the month at the Arbordale in Clive from 10 am to 3 pm and the 4th Monday of every month, from 10 am- 3 pm at Grimes United Methodist Church. Bring a lunch, dessert provided. Lots of opportunities to help on workday! You can even pick up kits to sew at home, get dresses ready to send out and you don't even have to know how to sew! Hope to see you on Monday.

Dress A Girl Des Moines
May 2021 Newsletter

Dear DAG Family and friends,

Free at last, thank goodness, we’re free from the masks!!! It was so amazing to walk around the other day without my face uncovered, that I almost felt guilty. Hopefully we will be totally back to normal really soon.

We had a wonderful turnout last month. Got tons of kits made. Thank to all that were there. On the way home I dropped off kits to our mystery sewer Jane. I just picked them up and gave her the rest. She makes 20 to 30 dresses per month.

Even though our bank account is in good shape at the moment, if we ever find a permanent home, where we have workspace as well as storage, there will be rent to pay. Then it will disappear quickly. We discussed possible fund raisers and someone came up with the idea of a spot at Winterset Cover Bridge Days the 1st week in October. Everyone was very excited and the majority voted to go ahead with it. Cost for a 10 foot space would be $250.00 for a charity allowing us to sell some sort of food or a the fee of $175.00 for homemade hand Craft, no foods. We decided to make crafts such as pin cushions, place mate, potholders and other useful items made from fabric. If we did serve a food, it would be something readymade. I suggested possibly cider. I asked the organizer if we could sell commercially made cider without a food license. She is going to check that out for us. If you are coming to our May meeting please bring ideas and patterns that you might have. I’ve come up with a couple of items that I haven’t seen made.

It was decided to change our workshop hours from 10 am to 3 pm with cleanup starting at 2:30. That allows everyone a little shorter day.

There were 411 dresses brought in, inspected, counted and sorted by size and they all went to OCC. Heather was thrilled to get so many more. I ran into her at a restaurant recently and she said they had all been distributed. In the past 2 months we have given them over 700 dresses. What a wonderful Christmas it will be for many little girls all over the world.

Grimes United Methodist Church
Monday, May 24th
10am to 3pm
Bring a sandwich.
Dessert provided by Shirley Lookingbill

Enjoy your newfound freedom, carefully!

Reminder--next Monday from 10-3 at Grimes UMC church is our next work day! Need ladies to make up kits, size-quality check, sew on Dress A Girl labels and package dresses again. Bring a lunch, dessert provided.

The snow is almost gone, we're putting the winter coats away and enjoying the fresh air. It getting so I look forward to a walk the dog again. I hope you all are enjoying this as much as I am.

We have gotten several dress in from various people and we'll have to do sizing and quality control at our meeting. Our February meeting was cancelled so our need for kits is still huge! I made a few and took them over to one of our avid sewers and she'll most likely have them done by meeting time. I like to have 50 or so kits on hand at any one time but I can't tell your the last time that happened.

We will spend the most of the meeting making kits. I have made a couple of new patterns that have sleeves. There is becoming a need for this style of dress. Some counties require sleeves for female clothing. The pattern takes more fabric then I like, but I've found a dress that has a cap sleeve but is a straighter line. I'm having trouble finding the actual pattern. Donna Moore, President

Dress A Girl work day at Grimes United Methodist Church on Monday, March 22nd 10 am - 3:30 pm, bring a lunch--dessert provided.

Our 5th anniversary party and workday at Grimes UMC on Monday Feb 21st has been cancelled. Plan to see you for workday in March.

Dress A Girl
Des Moines
February Newsletter

Dear DAG Family & friends,

January is over and the snow managed to keep us all home, at least most of us, from our meeting. A few turned up for the meeting. Rose Mary, Margaret, Karey (dropped off dresses) and Rachel, yes I said Rachel and Jordan arrived from Forest City, not knowing that we were in for a storm! We counted and checked the 129 dresses Rose Mary brought from the senior center. Plus, we had some accumulation from the previous month. We managed to get most of our storage stuff in Jana’s Mom’s garage which is only a few blocks away. The church has allowed to use a metal storage cabinet they have that we can put small items we use regularly.

February 29th will be our 5th anniversary. Wow how time flies! Donna Mark, Margaret Foster, Shirley Lookingbill and myself, had a phone meetings to see what we might do to celebrate. We came up with this plan. For our normal meeting, February 22, we would have a catered lunch of lasagna, salad, bread and cake for dessert. Rachel has agreed to come and do a video presentation on DAG/H4WI for us to enjoy. We are asking each of you to pay $10.00 per person to cover the cost. We would also invite a few special guests to join us. People like Susan & Angie from the Arbordale (Reserve). They worked it out so we could meet there, Jim Heseman with whom we worked with in the first year taking dresses for many trips to Africa, Jana & Mike the Staff at Grimes United Methodist Church and of Course Rachel and Jordan.

February 22nd
11:30
Grimes United Methodist Church
801 West 1st Street,
Grimes, IA

WE MUST HAVE A RESERVATION SO WE CAN PLAN ON HOW MANY MEALS TO ORDER.

I’ll need reservations by the 19th of February.

Our next workday is Monday, January 25th at Grimes United Methodist Church in the gym from 10-3. Hope to see you. Bring a lunch--stay all day. We'll share a dessert. Drop off your finished dresses or pick up some more kits to sew. Hope to see you on Monday with your mask and our social distancing work stations.

Today 7 ladies met for our Dress A Girl Annual Christmas party for lunch, games and gift exchange!

This is the women we chose to sponsor in honor of Marilyn's memory.

We had our November Dress A Girl Work Day in a different location--Grimes United Methodist Church. Our work area was a huge area to spread out, cut patterns, make dress kits, do quality check on the over 200 finished dresses brought in. We selected our next women to sponsor in memory of our DAG worker, Marilyn F.

In memory of Marilyn, the DAG Des Moines group at the October meeting decided to sponsor another Hope 4 Women International through our to honor Marilyn for tireless contributions to Dress A Girl.

Yesterday we packed over 100 shoeboxes boxes for Operation Christmas Shoebox. Dress A Girl Des Moines donated dresses, school supplies, tiny toys, beanie babies and boy shorts and t-shirts.

Dress A Girl workday today at Valley UMC lower level 10-3

Another very productive Dress A Girl work day at Valley UMC church yesterday. Lots of masked workerbees cutting patterns for kits, ladies dropping off finished dresses and picking up more to sew at home, ladies doing sizing, quality checking and placing finished dresses in inventory. With Covid restrictions our missionaries are not able to distribute our dresses SO we voted to give all our dresses in inventory to Operation Christmas Child. Also got in fun items, supplies and over 200+ Beannie Babies to fill our OCC Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. FYI --working on a date and location to fill the boxes yet--Watch for it, many hands will make it happen fast.