So yesterday, at my other job (my 9-to-5), 23 co-workers and 1 converted 2 conference rooms into a sewing hub and made 15+ dresses for the Dress A Girl Around The World initiative (DAGATW). 15+ because we finished 15 dresses and had bits of 4 more in progress ... to be finished on Day 2 of our effort.
I'll tell you how this came to be ...
Every year, my employer (PJM Interconnection, LLC), holds a United Way campaign for a couple of months. This starts off with a kick-off event where we can meet various charity and volunteer organizations. We then can donate to the organization of our choice online. PJM also gives us all a paid day to go and volunteer in our communities (awesome, right?).
This year, I emailed the coordinators and said that I like sewing and would be interested in any volunteer opportunities like DAGATW that come up. We didn't have any but they were in support of the idea and said we would start one. One of the coordinators, 2 other ladies and myself created a committee to plan the event, do a test run (we made 0.8 of a dress in 3 hours because we were figuring things out as we went along) and guide and support on the d-day. The plan was to start with a half-day event on campus, see how the response is and then decide if we want to do a second one.
Well, the turn out and support was incredible and we're having the second one on 10/16.
Yep, I love my job.
Moments that made me smile:
- Hearing a man talking about soldering something over the weekend while he hand-stitched a label to a dress.
- Seeing one of our Senior Vice Presidents take charge of one of the ironing boards and prep strap after strap after strap then join the hand-stitching crew.
- The applause when a lady held up a dress and said we just completed our first dress.
- Our MVP was a man and his sewing machine. We just let him work and kept feeding him pinned dresses, pockets, hearts and the like to sew.
- Seeing all our dresses taped up as they were completed.
You won't regret it.
