By Troop #300/Cherri C., Wake 19

Hi! We are Troop #300, from Wake 19, and we would like to tell a quick story about a project we worked on this past year, called Operation Pillowcase!

We stumbled upon this project on the Historic Georgia Council’s website while planning our fall trip to Savannah, the place of origin for Girl Scouting! There was a brochure showing us that the Girl Scout’s of Historic Georgia started a project to sew 1,000 dresses made of pillowcases to donate to girls in Liberia.

When this idea was brought to the troop- there was unanimous agreement, all the girls wanted to include this into our itinerary! We planned to have a date where we could all make a dress and deliver it to the Girl Scout First Headquarters in Savannah when we visited.

To being our project, we took action to see if any companies or store could help donate their time or supplies. Bed, Bath and Beyond donated lots of pillowcases to us to use and a local sewing machine/vacuum store allowed us to work in their shop! The local sewing shop, in Cary, NC, showed each and every girl how to use a machine, sew by hand, add buttons and many other aspects of sewing. It really sparked interest in our troop and many went home inspired about sewing, a new life skill we had learned through Girl Scouting.

One of our girls, Sarah, went home and made more dresses with her grandma, after seeing how much she liked sewing and becoming inspired to help this cause.

Finally, when the time came around to our Savannah trip, after a day of fun, we walked to the Girl Scout First Headquarters and dropped off our dresses, sending them off on their way. The project had an original goal of donating 1,000 dresses and working together we were able to ship a total of 1,359 dresses to the girls in Liberia!

Later we received pictures of many Liberian girls overjoyed at their new dresses. It touched all of our hearts to see the joy on their faces, and knowing that we took a part of making a difference through Operation Pillowcase.

Read more about how this project inspired our troop with the testimonials below!

“The joy on the Liberian girl’s face on the left is an image that will stay with me for a long time.  Our Coastal Pines girls also learned life skills when the local Cary sewing store taught them how to make the dresses.  We delivered the dresses to the GA GS Council on our Wider Opportunity trip this last February.  Win-Win all around!!” 

-Nancy Caggia & Elaine Loyack, Troop #300 Leaders

“The operation pillowcase project was thoroughly enjoyable and fun. We had so much fun making them, decorating them, and sending them. It was also really nice to know that it was for a good cause. “

 -Sarah Hooper, Troop #300

“When we first started this project, I didn’t know how to sew with a machine.  I had only ever made sock creatures by hand. But then we started to make the dresses.  It was cool to see how you could turn something so simple into something meaningful.  It was hard to keep the stitches straight and pick them out if you had to.  We had fun though, especially when the sewing was done, and you could put the ribbon through the dress and tie it.  Looking at those pictures months later, you get a special feeling to see how happy these girls are and how thankful.  Operation Pillowcase was a really worth-while project.”  

-Olivia Loyack, Troop #300

A big thank you to Troop #300 for sharing this amazing story! Troops from our council have been involved in many community service projects and we encourage girls to always be looking for opportunities to be a part of such amazing projects!  If you have a story to share with us submit it through the Girl Scout Gallery on our website, post on our Facebook wall, tell us on Twitter, or pin a story on Pinterest!