We are hanging on to our seats as the work flies forward. Every now and again we touch down, but then, we’re off and running–all to keep up with YOU! Thank you, everyone, for all the unbelievable work that’s going on all over the state of Utah and beyond. We’ve now got sister teams in southern and central California, Arizona, Wyoming, Louisiana and Washington, Virginia and Hawaii. Amazing. Not to mention more than 20 who have registered as teams as a result of learning about Days for Girls at our BYU Women’s Conference booth!

On a whim, we sat down to make a list of how many hands it takes to prepare what goes into one single kit. You may not believe this, but it’s true: it takes a Village! You are a part of that Days for Girls Village. It takes dozens of helpers to make one kit. Just for fun, take a look at our list and find the pieces you’ve helped with:

Purchase fabric, washcloths, underwear, Ziploc bags, drawstrings, soap
Donate fabric, or items for kits
Sort donations
Wash fabric
Iron fabric
Dye white underwear or washcloths
Sort underwear by size, bag in 20s
Cut tags of washcloths, fold
Trace PUL
Cut PUL
Trace cotton
Cut cotton
Assemble shield sandwiches
Stitch shield sides
Turn stitched shields
Trim stitched shields
Trim ends, stitch ends, turn ends
Snap shields (awl, caps, studs, sockets, quality control, fix mistakes)
Cut pocket strips
Iron pocket strips
Top stitch pocket strips
Cut pocket pieces
Cut flannel strips
Serge flannel hotspot strips
Cut flannel strips and hotspot strips into liner sizes
Match cut hotspot strips with cut liner squares
Stitch hotspots down with sewing machine
Serge edges of liners
Fold liners into thirds
Cut bags
Serge edges of bags
Stitch sides of bags
Stitch U-Turn on bags
Stitch casing on bags
Cut drawstrings
Stitch tape in half if needed
Thread drawstrings into bags
Knot or secure ends. Melt if needed
Fold Ziplocs for assembly
Unwrap soap
Prepare stacks of 8 different folded liners
Load shields with one and with two liners
Prepare piles of items for each kit
Quality check each pile, load Ziploc with items
Quality check each filled Ziploc, load into drawstring bag
Box for distribution, add bagged, labeled underwear
Tape boxes
Store, Transport, Distribute boxes
Coordinate Distribution Training
Distribute Kits!
Respond to emails, phone calls and Facebook messages
Schedule events
Organize events
Attend events
Bring food to events
Receive stories and photos from the field
Donate financially
Share with others and tell the Days for Girls story

As you find your place in this movement, you will see that you are surrounded by many many others, working with you to make beautiful kits. Very few of us do the entire process by ourselves. We are a moving, living assembly line with more than 50 jobs to do. We each do what we can, and in the end, kits come out! We could not function without every piece of the puzzle being attended to. We need each of you and your willing helping hands!

There is a wonderful sisterhood that attends this work. I hope you feel it and enjoy being involved. If you’ve stepped away for a moment, we hope you’ll come back and join us. There are girls all over the world praying for help and relief. We can help. We can lighten their loads, simply and joyfully in all the ways listed above. Please find your place of service in this movement. Please help us continue to be the greatest kit producing area in the DfG World!

We have many miracles to report on. If there were time to do a daily miracle newsletter, we could fill it.

The first Huge Miracle is WE HAVE A NEW DfG SEWING CENTER IN OREM!
We’ve secured a space in Building Q on the old WordPerfect Campus at 585 East 1200 North in Orem. We have moved in, and now have a permanent place to set up a sewing center where you can come to work. This space allows us to hold events, training, and work days every week and whenever needed. It is a place you can come with your RS and YW groups, your book clubs and quilt groups, or with your neighbors and friends. We have sewing machines and sergers there, so you don’t have to bring yours from home. We also have piles of work that can be taken home and returned. It’s Fabulous! We are grateful for kind individuals who are providing this space for us.

You can visit our workroom every Wednesday and Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Starting in September, these new times are in addition to our Orem Third Thursday Event. You can come learn how to host an event, get support for your teams and chapters, or use one of our sergers, sewing machines, and the large cutting tables to keep the work moving forward.

Our workroom is located in the basement of the further most southwest building, building Q, of the old WordPerfect/Novell Campus at 585 E. 1200 N., Orem. Please park and enter through the lobby on the west side of the building. Go through the secured glass doors, proceed straight down the hall to the building lobby, and take the elevator or stairs to the basement level. Our offices are down the hall through the double doors to your left as you exit the elevator or stairwell. If this time doesn’t work for you, just email us and we will arrange for another time. Come join us!  The phone number there is 385 237-5533.

The next wonderful miracle is that we have been able to record the Days for Girls story on video so it can be shared at your events or camps or in your families. Daniela Larsen and her film crew at Creative Media Group offered to help us prepare this video. They are a humanitarian-minded team who traveled to Nepal in July to help educate women there. They are working with Operation Underground Railroad (educates women about sex trafficking https://ourrescue.org/ ) and the Elizabeth Smart Foundation (http://elizabethsmartfoundation.org/ ). They will be partnering with us, taking DfG kits with them to help girls in Nepal stay in school so they can learn marketable skills that will keep them safe from the slave traders. Celeste Mergens was also be in Nepal in July. We are working together to make that place safer for women and girls.

Video Title YouTube Link
Days for Girls – Full Story https://youtu.be/SjjsH2Go2Cc
Days for Girls – Guatemala Story https://youtu.be/rZVaWcz39Ps
Days for Girls – Power of Education https://youtu.be/FyPGBkwv7-I

Daniela heads a non-profit called Small Candles. You can learn about the amazing work she is doing here: https://vimeo.com/127752976 We are grateful to partner with her and her team.  Below are girls in Nepal who received our kits:

For your information, this is not just a problem in Nepal. Read this 9 June 2015 FOX news report to learn about what’s going on along our own Wasatch Front:
http://fox13now.com/2015/06/09/utah-massage-parlors-raided-in-human-trafficking-prostitution-crackdown/

Here is another interesting piece of education– a wonderful 8 minute film called Girls Interrupted.

Filmed in Sierra Leone, Girls Interrupted, highlights the desperation of girls to go to school, despite the many obstacles that are thrown in their path. In Sierra Leone 85% of girls don’t go to secondary school because of poverty, early marriage or discrimination. Knowing that education is the only way to escape poverty, they sell anything to pay for their school fees – including their bodies.
Please watch this. It will help you understand why we are helping.

As awareness of female issues increases, country leaders are taking note and good things are happening. Here is an interesting article about FGM in Nigeria:
History Has Been Made. Female Genital Mutilation Banned In Nigeria
http://nigeria.aplus.com/a/nigeria-bans-genital-mutilation?utm_campaign=i102&utm_source=a61196&so=7gB4jxkXQK3QihqFSrH8yX&ref=ns

We know these are some very hard topics, but we must be aware. We’ve shared this poem before, but will share it again here and now. It’s one of our favorites.

Awareness
God–let me be aware.
Let me not stumble blindly down the ways,
Just getting somehow safely through the days,
Not even groping for another hand,
Not even wondering why it all was planned,
Eyes to the ground unseeking for the light,
Soul never aching for a wild-winged flight,
Please, keep me eager just to do my share.
God–let me be aware.

God–let me be aware.
Stab my soul fiercely with others’ pain,
Let me walk seeing horror and stain,
Let my hands, groping, find other hands.
Give me the heart that divines, understands.
Give me the courage, wounded, to fight.
Flood me with knowledge, drench me in light.
Please–keep me eager to do my share.
God–let me be aware.

–Miriam Teichner b. 1888

Gathering our Stories

Ann Lewis sent this note out in June. Thanks to all who have responded!  If you have not yet taken time to send your experiences in, please do it now. The stories pouring in have been wonderful and inspiring and we’d hate to miss yours! We hope to compile these into a booklet that can be shared. Thank you very much!

My Dear Days for Girls Friends!
Many of you know me as a Days for Girls Advocate. I am also a History Keeper and I have been keeping a history of our DfG work here for the last two years or more. We had no idea when we started DfG work here that it would be such a huge and monumental movement. With your help, our work here in Utah and beyond is producing more kits than all the rest of the world put together!
You may also know that next month I am leaving with my husband for a 3 year LDS Mission. John will preside over the new Washington Yakima Mission. Before I go, I’d like to ask one last favor of you.
I would be Thrilled if you would you please quickly respond right now to this email, answering the questions below so that I can compile into our history YOUR experience with Days for Girls. If this has been forwarded to you by your local DfG Leader, please send your experiences to annlewis@byu.net

I love and appreciate each of you. We are grateful for every item you have donated or purchased or washed or ironed or traced or cut or compiled or sewn or serged or assembled or delivered. We are grateful for you for spreading the word and helping others understand the need. More than 20,000 kits have gone out from Utah in the last 2 years and we have thousands more being made now and going out soon. It’s really been miraculous!
Thank you so Very Much for your part, large, or small in this work. It has been a pleasure and joy to meet you, to work with you, and to watch you as you have sacrificed and served and helped in so many different ways. I will continue to watch and help as I am able during the next 3 years, and I look forward to stepping back into the fun here when we return.
With Great Gratitude,
Ann Lewis, DfG Utah

Your Days for Girls Experience
·Please give your name and where you live
·Briefly describe your involvement with Days for Girls
·Please share any experience or impressions you’ve had while working with DfG

Here are some DfG Stories you will enjoy–

BYU Women’s Conference  
Our Days for Girls events at the BYU Women’s Conference were a huge success. It is very unusual for BYU to welcome a private organization to be represented in the Sharing Stations at WC. This year we were invited. Thanks to Tanise Chung-Hoon and Shauna Russell who helped make this possible. We had a beautiful display where we received and taught 1000s of women, group after group, who stood in lines 5 deep and 10 across to hear about what we do and how they might become involved. In the first month after Women’s Conference at least 20 new teams were formed across the nation, who mentioned they learned about DfG at WC.

We also held a wonderful sewing event during WC for the President’s Leadership Council women at Sundance. We taught the DfG story, then everyone went to work for several hours, tracing, cutting and sewing. At the end of the evening we assembled almost 150 kits. It was a fabulous evening. These PLC women came from all over the country. We are grateful for their support and kindness and look forward to hearing about how they spread the word in their home wards.  

Utah Valley University Faculty and Staff Day of Service

A Huge amount of good poured out of UVU Faculty and Staff members in May as they worked all morning on DfG Kits, parts and pieces. We had about 150 people engaged for about 4 hours. It was fantastic! Thanks to all who came and to all who will continue helping!

Los Angeles Event
May 29-30, Wendy Barton, Julie Treadwell and Ann Lewis headed to Los Angeles where we joined Carol Turley and her excellent committee for a huge DfG Event held Saturday in the Los Angeles Stake Center. It was absolutely amazing! More than 200 women from 12 different LA wards gathered, which included a Korean ward and Hispanic wards. Carol also invited men and women from other local churches, including an Ethiopian congregation and the Thai Town Rotary Club.We worked from 9:00 to 2:00, and didn’t want to stop when the time came. A delicious lunch was served in the courtyard, where women could pause for a minute to grab a bite. We have officially launched the women of Los Angeles into the wonderful world of Days for Girls! We are so grateful for all who helped. What an amazing committee of women prepped and worked for months to prepare for this event. We look forward to a long and productive association. It took 4 cars, filled to the brim, to take all the work and donations home. Many lives will be blessed by the kits that will come out of Los Angeles!

Julie Treadwell to Uganda and Kenya
In April, Julie Treadwell, our Kaysville DfG Leader traveled to Uganda and Kenya and gave this wonderful report:
For Uganda, I took some kits for a school there and some kits for the team on the ground in Kenya. I wouldn’t get to distribute in Kenya, but I knew they needed anything I could get to them.

In Uganda, Jane Sebuyungo, had set us up to meet with 40 girls, in a school of 1500 students, who are part of a specific program called “Educate.” I had packed more than 40 kits to take to the school, but at the last minute, decided to toss in several “extras” just so they could have a choice of bags. When we got to the classroom, there were over 70 girls who were waiting and more kept coming! I hadn’t counted beyond the initial 40 so I didn’t even know how many I had. I only knew I didn’t have enough for all the girls in that room! We decided to have them sign a paper and we’d cross their name off the list as they picked up a kit. Then we told them we’d get them the rest from the office (and I just wouldn’t take any to Kenya). Jane had promised two for the teachers so they would have their own kit but, more importantly, have one from which to learn how to sew and then teach the girls to sew.

Before the anatomy lesson, I was asked to say something. I told them I had come from Utah, in the United States where there were girls their age and women who prepared these kits. “They don’t know [you.] They don’t know [your] names. But they had heard what [you] needed and they wanted to help.” I told them these women and girls had donated fabric and money, but especially their time. “They had spent MANY hours sewing these kits because they know education is important and they wanted [you] to stay in school.” The classroom erupted in cheers. Then I passed around pictures of some people working on the kits. (Thought it might be sweet for THEM to see YOU!!!) After the Q&A, the girls started filing out of the room, picking up a bag and panties as they did, and I was ready to take picturess with my camera. But they didn’t want me to take picturess of them; they wanted picturess of me with them. (As a result, I had to hand over the camera and the picturess are blurry J) I felt like a celebrity. They kept hugging and thanking and wanting to stay next to me. It was soooooo endearing. Such gratitude and such EXCITEMENT over getting these kits. It makes me weepy thinking remembering it. Anyway, afterwards Jane rode with us back to the office so she could get the remaining kits to take back to the school on a boda boda! (The back of a motorcycle.) She had the list of girls names who hadn’t received a kit. We started counting out the kits. I held my breath as we got to the end of the list and we had exactly, I mean EXACTLY, the number of kits we needed. AMAZING!!!! Additionally, I had one kit that we had taken out of the mix because when we did Quality Control, it was missing two shields and we didn’t have enough underwear for it. I asked Jane, the woman who had organized the event with the school, if she would like to have that partial kit for herself. She was very eager for it. I asked Team Uganda if they had any sewn shields I could buy from them, and some women’s sized underwear. They did. They didn’t charge me, they just added them to the kit and we gave it to Jane. So, even better EXACTNESS. Loved it. She wasn’t slated to receive one but it still worked out that she did.
God is in the Details.

BYU Nursing Students to Ecuador
Ann,
This excerpt is from one of the students who taught DFG in Ecuador. I have not yet had time to write up anything for you, but she describes it beautifully and better because she experienced it. It was the DFG platform that helped prepare her for this amazing teaching experience. I will send some pictures today as soon as I get into my BYU computer where they are stored. Thanks!

One global health experience we had was to visit the city of Tena, near the edge of the Amazon forest. It was a unique and beautiful experience! We got to visit schools and do health screenings and education with all of the kids and some community members as well. This global health experience was definitely the highlight of my time in Ecuador. The information that I prepared before going in country was about reproductive health and the Days for Girls project.
At the first school we visited, Haley Hill and I had to opportunity of taking aside a group of young women to talk to them about maturation and the Days for Girls kits. Though we definitely struggled with the language, cultural differences, (and trying to get the boys to leave us alone) the experience was still rich for many reasons. We shared information about health and their developing bodies. What was the most invaluable, however, was the exchange of love, encouragement, and self-worth. We wanted to empower the girls to know that they were beautiful, capable, and important. We wanted to help them see that they can shape and take hold of their health and futures. And most of all we wanted them to feel loved by us!
I had many further opportunities to teach in community settings and individually. Some of those experiences included teaching nutrition in stake health fairs and teaching reproductive health to young adults. These experiences helped me realized even more how much I love teaching! I have a passion for youth and young adults. They bring so much energy with them and are passionate about learning.
My favorite experiences were those when I could see the light go on in the people’s eyes when they gained a new piece of information. Knowledge is powerful because it allows people to feel that they have control over something and that they can positively influence their lives and their situations. I love teaching about health because it empowers others to take the care of their bodies into their own hands.
Ecuador also deepened my passion for women’s health. Empowering women through improving health is definitely an area of the profession that fascinates me. Many experiences helped me be even surer of some of the areas of nursing that I would like to focus on in my future practice. I would like to find ways that I can practice both in hospitals and in the community. I am interested in public health because it can emphasize education and prevention more so than in the hospital setting. I am excited to discover even more ways nurses can be advocates for health and empowerment everywhere!
Amanda Hales, BYU nursing student

Stacie Hunsaker, MSN, CEN, CPEN
Assistant Professor
College of Nursing
Brigham Young University

Kits from Utah to Switzerland to Nepal

Vielen Dank to Katharina Odavic and her daugher, Dominique Ruetz, who have introduced DfG to our Sisters in the St. Gallen Stake (pictured above). We have just received these photos from their huge Stake Activity with this report:
Our “Happy Helping Day” went fantastic. Dominique wrote about it on the DfG website, as far as I know. A neighbor put her head through the door and asked what we were doing. Dominique had put me right at the entrance with information and the snap machine. I explained and showed her. Then she wanted to see the whole building and was very impressed. Every room of the big building was occupied with working sisters, even the corridors. She will be sewing bags for us. All she wanted was the measurement. I had invited the friend who founded our foundation in Nepal. She brought 2 more friends, one of them a sewing teacher. Isn’t this so wonderful?

Here is Kathrarina packing kits to take to Nepal, along with the ones being made in Switzerland:

Distribution of DfG Kits in Dominican Republic 
I spent this morning in an area that was devastated by a fire 4 weeks ago. 67 homes burned to the ground and they lost everything. They are a Haitian community and their homes had been small shacks. They cannot afford to rebuild. All of these families pile into the school and 2 churches at night to sleep head to toe, side by side. When morning comes they move everything back outdoors. When school starts next month they can no longer stay there. It is so humbling to see. It made me appreciate the roof over my head.
We brought about 18 suitcases of supplies with us, shoes, clothes, wash clothes, toothbrushes, baby formula, pots and pans, etc. it was greatly appreciated.
Then we talked to the ladies of the community to teach their girls how to use the feminine hygiene kits the YW had worked on. (Most of the youth were out trying to find small odd jobs to feed their families) they were so appreciative because they don’t even have enough money for food, let alone personal hygiene. The smiles on their faces were huge. So thanks for all your hard work in teaching the YW the value of service and helping us with that huge service project a few months back.
Danelle Dickerson

Lauri Wall delivers kits from Payson in Kenya    
From Lauri:
What is the one thing every girl has in common regardless of race or ethnicity? Menstrual cycles. Yes, periods. What is the one thing every girl deserves? Clean, safe sanitary protection. Here in the US females have the luxury of aisles and shelves with all types of feminine protection. However, in third world countries, this luxury doesn’t exist. Many girls use old rags, corn cobs, tree bark, small sand bags, cardboard and more. These items cause infection and ill health. If girls have no protection, they are not allowed to attend school for a week each month, which is twelve weeks a year. Thus, girls tend to fall behind in their education and some even drop out of school altogether ensuring illiteracy and an early marriage is enviable.
I had the amazing opportunity to become involved with Days For Girls, an organization that firmly believes every girl, everywhere, should have the resource of clean, healthy protection. PERIOD! Two-hundred Days For Girls kits (which included washable-reusable sanitary pads, shields, panties, washcloths and soap all in a cute fabric bag) were recently delivered to the girls of the Nkoilale Boarding school. Cheers of joy, applause, smiles and gratitude showed on the faces of the girls as they proudly carried their kits on their shoulders like a smart purse. Thank you so much Deanna Hansen and Payson West Stake for your involvement with Days For Girls as well as entrusting me to deliver your love and hard work.
After donations of fabric, purchasing fabric, cutting, cutting and more cutting as well as hours of kit assembly. 175 reusable sanitary pad sewing kits were presented to a group of women in Nkoilale, on the Maasai Mara. These women will hopefully turn this into a business that will allow them to be businesses women, as well as mentors for others. Thanks to all who donated fabric and SOS for help in putting kits together. One by one we can all make a difference to that one.
Thank you to our Payson, Utah DfG helpers who made this possible!

Andrea Beard continues to connect us
Dear Ann
This photo is from my niece Shannon that took 500 kits to Uganda. She just taught her first class and sent this photo.
Hope things are well with your mission plans.
Thanks Andrea Beard