The Dignity Project, Part Two

If you're feeling heavy-hearted, we hope you'll get a good giggle out of this week's podcast. And at the end, I talk a bit more about the Dignity Project, which has been the subject of the blog yesterday and today!

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If you missed yesterday's blog post, go check it out, because it explains more about what you're getting ready to read. I promised I would bring you some tips for hosting your own party with a purpose if you and some friends want to jump on board with The Dignity Project to help others!

1. Location. Angi reserved her church fellowship hall/gym for this party, and that worked really well, because there were plenty of tables, chairs and outlets, as well as elbow room and overhead lighting. If you don't have a space similar to this available to you, you can certainly do this at home, but make sure you have things like folding tables and chairs, power strips, extension cords, lamps, etc.

2. Pitching in. Angi requested that everyone who came bring a minimum $5.00 donation to help cover the cost of the supplies. Depending on how big your group is or how many of these you want to make, you might want to even request a higher donation. In addition, she asked for participants to bring supplies like sewing machines, scissors, rotary blades, cutting mats, etc. It might be helpful, if you're organizing such an event, to get an idea of what people are going to bring so you know what needs to be filled in. Angi had a table with spare supplies on it like thread, measuring tape, etc.

3. Buy ahead. Since the church wasn't particularly close to any craft supply store, Angi did a great job of making sure we had adequate supplies on hand before the day of the event. She'd gone to the store and purchased the fabric and other supplies so when everyone arrived, they could launch right into working. It helps to have a checklist of what you need and a mental goal of how many packets you want to make, so you know how much you need! {Planning a bit in advance also gives you a chance to collect coupons or watch for sales so you can get the most for your money!}

4. Make ahead. The beauty of this set-up is the chance to create work stations, where different people can do different things. Because it's an assembly line of sorts, it also makes the work go faster if you can have some steps of the project completed before the work day begins, so everyone at every station can start at the same time. It's not required, of course, but it was nice to have people immediately begin to sew, even while others were still cutting out new material.

5. Create stations. Angi had something for everyone, regardless of skill level. When people arrived, she asked what they might want to do and helped direct them to something that suited their skills. There were also opportunities for people to switch stations partway through the day, so if they wanted to learn how to do each step while they had people there to assist them, they could do that on this day and then they could take what they learned and make the entire project from start to finish on their own if they wanted.

6. Have some experts. A couple of the women in the group were particularly skilled at sewing and while perhaps they didn't have the most productive day, they were able to readily answer questions and offer advice to those who needed additional assistance. It made the day flow more smoothly because they were able to troubleshoot! And of course, when all else fails, ask Google! The group working on the snaps were struggling with the particular kind of snaps they used, so they watched a tutorial on YouTube and immediately figured out the problem and moved ahead to work efficiently!

7. Create awareness. Although most people there were familiar with the purpose of the Dignity Project, Angi made sure to go through an overview of the impact our work had, reminding us that what we did was important and meaningful. It was good to be reminded in the moment of why we were there and how we were making a difference.

8. Have food and have fun! Everyone is more productive when they're full, right? Angi had a good supply of coffee, water, hot chocolate, and a warm, delicious lunch to keep us all happy while we worked! {If you don't want to take on the work and expense of all the food on your own, you could make this part of what people pitch in.} Above all - have fun while you work! Work in pairs or teams and get to meet new people while you work!

The Supplies
Here are the supplies you'll want to have on hand to make these packets from start to finish:
* The pattern
* Sewing machines/extra needles/bobbins
* Regular Scissors
* Pinking Shears
* Cutting Mats
* Rotary cutters/extra blades
* Thread
* Regular fabric
* PUL fabric {A water resistant fabric}
* Flannel
* Snaps
* Velcro
* Measuring tape
* Markers/Pens/Pencils
* Straight Pins


The Stations/Jobs
Here are the different stations and jobs you can assign. People can do more than one of these tasks, or if you have a bunch of people at your party, they can each do one thing:
* Cutting strips of flannel for the absorbent liners
* Cutting circles of regular fabric for the base piece
* Cutting circles of PUL {the water resistant fabric} for the base piece
* Cutting strips of PUL for the packets the women can use to store the supplies
* Cutting strips of fabric that hold the liners in place
* Sewing the edges of the flannel liners
* Sewing the circles together {top, middle, bottom}
* Sewing the storage packets
* Sewing the strips that hold the liners
* Sewing the strips onto the circles
* Cutting off excess thread from all pieces that have been sewn
* Folding the liners
* Putting one liner inside the strips
* Adding snaps or velcro to the base piece
* Adding snaps or velcro to the storage packet
* Stacking two spare liners alongside one base piece that holds a liner
* Stuffing the entire packet together in the holder
* Supply runner {to move completed pieces onto the next station/get supplies for those who run out}
* Troubleshooter {to help with sewing/construction issues}
* Food/snacks {always need someone to make sure the food and drink table is well stocked and meals are ready}
* Shopper {if you run out of something and need to make a store run, have a designated person to go get whatever is needed}

If you have any questions about the project or how Angi organized it, let me know! If I don't know the answer, I'm happy to check with her! And if you want to know how to contact Jade directly about partnering with her on the Dignity Project, their contact information can be found on this page.

ALSO! One of my friends who owns a sewing shop here in town made a FABULOUS video tutorial on how to make these. You can watch it here if you're curious about the specifics of the sewing parts! She also has a page with the other helpful hints that you can find here.