This evening my neighbors and friends got together to assemble the Days for Girls kits we’ve been working on during the last month.  It was another room filled with electric love!  We completed 50 kits and have parts and pieces in various stages of completion for dozens and dozens more.  I showed slides of typical village life in Mali, where these kits are headed.  I’ll be taking as many as I can carry next month, and then again in February when we return.  It is our hope that we can help as many girls as possible in the middle schools and high schools.  Each kit contains 2 waterproof shields, 8 flannel liners, a washcloth, soap, 2 Ziploc bags, a pair of panties and illustrated instructions, all in a nice bag with drawstrings.  We try to make them as colorful and fun as possible for the girls.

FABRIC FAIRIES
I think about this project a lot.  I’ve decided  that when ever I’m in a fabric shop, which is quite often, I’ll check the clearance tables for flannel and bright fabrics that can be used in these sanitation kits.  So today I stopped in at JoAnn’s to see if they had anything.  There was a whole row of flannel on clearance 60% off!  I was excited.  That’s better than the price I found Monday.  I started loading my cart with wild and bright fabrics.  Then I found some cotton fabrics for the bags on sale for $4/yard minus 50%.  I added more to my cart.  By the time I got to the cutting table, my cart was stacked high.  The nice cutter lady said she’d give me 75% off the last bit of any bolt I finished (up to a yard), and so I finished off several bolts.  THEN this other nice JoAnn’s lady came by.  “I see you are buying quite a bit of fabric,” she said to me.  I told her this fabric was going to Africa in some humanitarian kits.  She said, “How would you like a text coupon?”  She explained to me that if I texted a number to the store, they’d text me back and if I replied “yes” they’d send me a coupon I could use for this purchase (along with additional coupons in the future via text).  I did what she said, and within minutes, I had a 20% off coupon texted to me, good for my ENTIRE purchase (usually sale items are excluded)!  That put my entire purchases at somewhere between 80-85% off!  You will see below part of the pile of fabric I brought home and my receipt.  I spent about $350 on fabric and I saved $713.00!!!

I have a feeling the fabric fairies were watching over me today.  They know where their fabric needs to go and they know we need as much as possible for what we have to spend.  My washing machine has been going non-stop pre-washing all these bright and beautiful fabrics and I’ll spend some hours cutting so I can divvy this out to friends who want to help.  We are few, but our numbers are growing and we can make a difference.