When high schooler and Gold Award recipient Allyson Story was looking to make a difference, she decided to combine simple pillowcases and a little ingenuity -- and she got big results.
A junior at Mountain Vista High School in Highlands Ranch, as well as a Girl Scout, Allyson had a passion for helping young girls in Juarez, Mexico, whom she learned about through missions with her church, Cherry Hills Community Church.
“Juarez is an impoverished place,” Allyson said. “I wanted to give (young girls) something new that they could have.”
So she decided to use her sewing skills to make dresses out of pillowcases, and she recruited and taught others to help her reach her goal of making 100 dresses for little girls. But with the help of her friends, younger Girl Scout troops, and people from her church, Allyson actually exceeded the goal, more than doubling it.
“I liked that even though the dresses were all the same basic shape, you could pick out different fabrics and different ribbon and make them different from each other,” Allyson said of the dresses, which simply consist of a pillowcase and a ribbon. “We picked out fun patterns.”
[caption id="attachment_14948" align="aligncenter" width="200"]
An example of a pillowcase dress[/caption]
When the dresses were complete, Allyson also decided to go one step farther and use patches of the pillowcase fabric to sew on teddy bears so each dress recipient could have a matching teddy bear of her own.
“It was something they could hold and use as a sense of security when times get tough,” she said.
Allyson's church then paid for her and her mother to travel to Juarez and spend three days distributing the dresses and teddy bears to little girls between the ages of 2 and 12. Using a translator, she also taught the local women how to make the pillowcase dresses so they could continue making them on their own.
[caption id="attachment_14946" align="aligncenter" width="225"]
Photo courtesy of the Parker Chronicle[/caption]
The 120 hours Allyson tirelessly spent on organizing and completing the "Juarez Dress Project" earned her the coveted Gold Award, which is awarded to a Girl Scout who recognizes a need in a community and then comes up with a solution that will keep going even after the project itself is complete. Only 28 Girl Scouts earned the Gold Award in Colorado this year; it is the highest achievement in Girl Scouting.
But in addition to the long-lasting effects of the project in Juarez, Allyson says it positively impacted her as well.
"I learned that not only am I capable of doing big things for the world, but I am able to take on things that may seem terrifying," Allyson said. "This project has given me a passion to be a leader in the sewing industry."
