The Junior Catholic Daughters (JCD) of Winslow is made up of 30 girls and young women ages 5 to 17 who routinely reach out to their community to help. Recently, 12 members of the JCD completed a charity project in which they designed and sewed over 100 dresses for girls in parts of Africa.
According to Patsy Bailon, the leader of Winslow group, the girls began the project in March and will send them off in the next few weeks. “They still have a few to finish,” Bailon said. “The idea was at the state level for a while and it just never really got started, but our girls took it on and did an outstanding job.”
One of the girls involved in the project is 13-year-old Brenna Short. “They don’t have as much as we have and we can always do things to help people out. We are also collecting experience while we were helping,” said Brenna.
The goal of the project was to be of service, but Bailon said there were other benefits and 10-year-old Yuliana Castruita agreed saying, “I liked learning how to sew, it’s something I never did before.”
The garments were made from pillowcases donated by members of both the Madre de Dios Catholic Church and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and gathered by the girls. Erika Sanchez-Rosales, a 12-year-old member said, “We put a basket in our church and people put pillowcases in it.” According to Bailon, over 100 pillowcases in different colors were collected. “The club itself did have to pay for some supplies like double sided tape, we spent over $100 just on that,” said Baillon.
The money the club spends comes from fundraisers such as bake sales and bingo nights held throughout the year and donations from the community. “Once, we made dozens and dozens of cookies and we made $630,” Bailon said. She explained that the money earned was going towards building a restroom in their meetinghouse. Currently the girls use the facilities at nearby homes when needed. “We really need a restroom,” said Bailon, “but the girls decided that we should use our building fund to help in Puerto Rico, so we did.”
The JCD of Winslow is a multi-faceted group that takes on various projects. “We are a charity group. We do a lot for the community all of the time, like doing trees for the festival of trees and donating to the fireworks fund,” said Bailon. They also assist in collecting non-perishable food for the St. Vincent De Paul’s food bank and visiting with the elderly at the Campus of Care.
