Here are some facts as to why we are not currently accepting new donations and why we are not using volunteers to collect/store dresses for us. On any given day we get 5-15 offers of wedding gown donations - that is amazing Alberta! :) - In the first 3 weeks we received 150 wedding gowns with no advertising. At this point we had 3 seamstresses. At 20 hrs per wedding gown (which is conservative, I think) that would mean each volunteer would need 1,000 hours of free time to work through these. - Long wait times lead to stress for our team and donators. Both are understandable, people have donated a very important item to us in good faith. It is stressful having a lot of dresses in our possession too - I always think what happened if my house flooded or some other catastrophe occured? - Lesson learned in the 1st three weeks? Dont take more dresses at a time than 3-4 per seamstress. Less stress for everyone. - Currently we have 13 volunteer seamstresses with kids, farms, jobs, home businesses and they should relax sometimes too (that is an order from your admin team). Keeping with the 150 dress figure that is 230 hours of volunteer time per volunteer. - Can we keep up to demand from hospitals? The answer is YES! One wedding gown makes 20-35 Angel Dresses. A initial package include 10items for facilities to get a feel for sizes and be able to visualize the garments. We then stock and make changes anytime. We also had a bit of a headstart on hospital requests and our seamstresses will always get me out of a bind as they are awesome!! Phew that is long - can you tell why I am the talker and not a sewer? Next post- information on what hospitals ask us about our program and what we have asked them- lots of little details to consider! Thanks Everyone, hope you have a great weekend! Anyone have plans? We are going to BoxTrolls (movie) for my sons birthday
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 00:27:17 +0000