Pillows for a cause

Times Reporter

 

We rest our head on them, and they make our pillows and bedrooms look nicer, but how many people have seen a pillowcase as much more than that? One woman has a goal to collect 1,000 pillowcases and turn them into sundresses for girls in Haiti before 2012 is finished. 

“I met a lady last June at a convention where my husband and I were and she was demonstrating this, and I thought what a neat idea,” said Pearl Reimer. 

The woman was Valerie Fields, who is making and sending the dresses to Haiti through her sister’s church, the Dallas Barnhartvale Baptist Church in Kamloops, B.C.

Fields first made a pillowcase dress after her daughter-in-law requested one for her daughter. When Field’s sister found out about it, it turned into a way to help people in need.

“My sister in Kamloops, her church, they have people going to Haiti regularly to a mission there, so my sister said ‘I need to know how to make these pillowcase dresses because that’s something I can do, because I couldn’t go to Haiti, it’s too hot and I would melt,’” said Fields. 

Reimer started collecting her own pillowcases after talking to Fields, and was anxious to get started. Like any goal, sometimes life gets in the way and it gets put off for a while. 

The pillowcases sat in her basement until Jan. 15 of this year when her husband was sick. Reimer came across the pillowcases when looking for something to do. 

After finishing the first 20 dresses she decided she could do more and that’s when she came up with the goal of 1,000 dresses in 2012.  There are flyers up around town, and at the schools, asking people to donate their old pillowcases. 

“The thing is, a little pillowcases, who doesn’t have a pillowcase, or what’s the cost of a pillowcase? It’s so minimal and yet to those little girls in Haiti it’s going to be worth much more than it is to us. Our sacrifice is small compared to their joy,” said Reimer. 

“The printed pillowcases are the best. Because of the print, the dirt doesn’t show as quickly, but I take solid colours too.”

The dresses come as varied as the pillowcase are, and each is the size of the pillowcase itself. It takes approximately 15 minutes to make one dress, and there is very little scrap left. 

Reimer has worked as a professional seamstress, and loves sewing. She can’t see a better way to use her talent. 

“If I do 25 a week then I’ll meet my goal of 100 a month,” said Reimer. 

She hopes to go to Haiti one day and have a chance to see some of the girls wearing the pillowcase dresses, and personally deliver them. Reimer said anyone interested in learning how to make the dresses are more than welcome to call her and she will show them. She is also collecting donations from anyone who has a pillowcase they would like to donate. 

For more information call Pearl Reimer at 403-993-6416 or email her at wpreimer@gmail.com.