Donation Type: Cloth Pad Donation
Location for Donations: Unknown (awaiting information on import restrictions for the countries we are looking to donate to)
Donating Through: Counterpart and Caucasus Children’s Relief Fund
Status: Closed – Unshipped
Start Date: 15th November 2006
Estimated Ending Date: May 2007
Australian Contact: Obsidian
American Contact: Natasha
New Zealand Contact: Helen
A donation of cloth pads has been accepted by www.counterpart.org, with help from the Caucasus Children’s Relief Fund. At this stage we do not know where the pads will be going, as the organisation sends aid to many different areas. I believe where they will go to will depend on how many we have to donate and when we are ready to donate. It doesn’t matter where they go, as they are going to women in need of menstrual products because of extreme poverty. slot99
We are working on organising goups of women in Australia, America and New Zealand to sew as many cloth pads as they can. These will be sent to a contact in each Country involved, who will then send these as a bulk lot to either the Organisation, or directly to where they are needed (depending on what the organisation wants us to do). slot77
They have confirmed that “normal” winged pads are fine, but have also asked that some belted pads be sent as well. hari88
What we need:
- Sewers – As many women as possible to join in sewing pads. If you are reasonably good at sewing (you don’t have to be a fantastic sewer, but you need to be capable of making a pad that will stand up to wear – looks are less important), and can spare some time making pads, we would love to have you on board. Even if you can make only a few pads, even if its just 1 – its all going to help, and every pad you can donate will help a woman who had one less pad before. We will have patterns and instructions available, and we have a yahoogroup for you to discuss anything or ask for help. You would need to provide the fabric and everything you need to sew the pads, and the postage and packaging to send the pads to the contact in your Country. These will have to be your own cost. I know that sounds expensive, but you can use old sheets and towels etc. so it shouldn’t cost you much at all.
- Fabric – Obviously the pads need to be made of something. If you have any clean fabric in good condition (Preferably new, but clean good condition used fabric [eg sheets] are also accepted), that can be used for making pads…. we might need it. Things such as towels, flannelette sheets and cotton. Waterproof cot sheets and the like can be used as a leak-proof barrier for the pads. Flannelette and towelling are used for the absorbency of the pads, but any 100% cotton can be used as an outer layer. So if you have fabric, but can’t (or don’t want to) help us sew the pads, you can contact us and we can work out how to get it to the sewers who need it. It will be preferable if you can donate the fabric and cover the postage to send it to someone. If you run a business (such as a nappy/diaper maker) and would like to donate suitable scraps, we’d love to have them and we can offer a link to your business in return.
- Money for postage – We are required to ship the pads to their destination at our expense. Postage will be quite expensive. So we will need to have donations to help cover the costs of posting the pad donations. We have a paypal account you can use for this, which keeps all money raised separate, and it will only be used for postage and other costs for getting this donation happening (such as fabric). If you do not like to donate actual money because we are not a charity or an organisation, perhaps you could donate $5 stamps to count towards the postage costs.
Like to get involved?
- Sew Pads – If you would like to help us sew pads, please join the yahoogroup http://groups.yahoo.com/group/donatepads where you can discuss the pad making and receive support from other sewers. We may be able to arrange fabric donations if you can’t get a certain type of fabric. When you join, please give your name, e-mail address & country (so we can make a list of all those helping) and give a rough estimation of how many pads you think you can make. If you want to be put on the list to accept fabric donations, please also give your town/state so we can find donations close to you if there are any.
- Fabric Donation – If you have any fabric that you wish to donate, please contact us to arrange this.
- Donations for Postage Costs – If you would like to donate $5 (or more) to help us cover the postage cost of sending the donated pads over to where they are needed (which may run to around $200), then you can make a payment to our paypal account donate@donatepads.org.