The Hundred Dresses

by Jill Mennig / ga08022007


 

One very successful enrichment meeting we held was centered around the children's story, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.  I ordered a lot of ten of the book off E-bay (about $20 for all) and we had the sisters pass the book around for a month or so (each sister would sign it as they read it) and asked sisters to begin donating dresses for a locale shelter (adult or child), with a goal of collecting one hundred.  We collected during December as the book involves Christmas time and held our meeting in January. 
 

That night we had a dinner and asked the sisters to bring a picture of themselves as a child and a high school year book and we played a matching game with the photos.  We decorated with old high school memorabilia, photos, keepsake dresses and displayed at the front all the dresses collected for donation on a clothes line.  We gave the sisters lots of time to mingle and socialize and look at each others photos. 

Toward the end of the evening we had 5 sisters share a story of a dress that had played a significant part in their life (a wedding dress, childhood dress, etc.) There was a great mix of funny sweet and spiritual.  It helped the women get to know these women a little better. 
 

We hung all of the dresses being collected at the front of the room on a clothesline and when we made the finally count we had exactly 100!   All in all, we ended up donating about 135 all together along with a few copies of the book to the women's shelter.  I got this idea from another ward in the area and we had about 40 sisters in attendance. This link should take you to the book information on Amazon if you are interested in reading more about the story. The story is a sweet reminder to be kind to others and understanding of our differences. It is also a story of forgiveness and redemption. It is a fast easy read, about an hour out loud to a child.
 

This page was  last  updated: 
August 2, 2007

 

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