FCCLA completes 'Little Dresses For Africa' project

GONZALES — Over the last three months the Gonzales High School Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) has completed a project where they sewed 140 pillowcase dresses to send to African schoolgirls.

The FCCLA competes annually in a service project. This year FCCLA participants are creating mostly-handmade pillowcase dresses for the non-profit known as Little Dresses for Africa.

The team of girls chose this project back in November and worked hard to collect pillowcases, all received by the generosity of the Gonzales community.

According to GHS teacher Sara Breitschopf, the dresses are packed up and ready to be shipped to organization founder Rachel O'Neal, in Michigan. Breitschopf said O’Neal is to arrange for the dresses to be delivered with a missionary going to a village in Africa.

“The dresses will serve as a token of friendship that will be the beginning of a humanitarian project supplying the village with a water-well and a commons area facility for the village,” Breitschopf said. “Primary education will also be implemented into the village of around 3,000 Africans.”

Breitschopf and the FCCLA would like to thank all those who donated, as well as give a special thank you to the Gonzales Noon Lions who, according to Breifschopf, were instrumental in the FCCLA project success.

Breitschopf and the FCCLA also send thanks to GHS Fashion Design students as well as community members who helped to construct the dresses.