Good response to gown appeal
A charity group in Oban helping baby loss families has received offers of help from Uist to Bute.
An appeal asking women to donate their wedding dresses or occasion gowns to be turned into beautiful outfits for babies who have died through miscarriage, stillbirth or from a neo-natal death received a fantastic response after an article appeared in The Oban Times.
One of the women, from Bute, who got in touch with the charity Zaagi said she had been married 50 years this year and wanted to donate her wedding dress to the special cause.
Susan Simpson, who is already the Highlands ambassador for SiMBA, another charity responding to the needs of families bereaved through the loss of a baby, is behind the new Zaagi group in Oban. She has hired out a room at The Rockfield Centre on Saturday January 12 from 2pm to 4.30pm for women to go along and donate their dresses.
Mrs Simpson is also looking for a group of volunteer unpickers and sewers to help turn the dresses into the baby gowns. There are patterns ready to follow.
‘I have had a really good response to the appeal, which is really encouraging. It would mean so much to so many families in their time of need if people donate their gowns and have time to come and unpick and stitch for us,’ said Mrs Simpson.
To find out more, go to Facebook. com/ events/258101044855088/
The charity Zaagi was founded in 2015 by Nigel and Kim Shaw-Walker after the death of their baby Sarah at 35 weeks. To try to process her own grief and to bring some small measure of comfort to other parents, Kim started to make beautiful outfits for babies from donated wedding and bridesmaids dresses before being joined by other supporters.
Zaagi is an Ojibwe word from the language of the Native Americans in Michigan where Kim grew up, meaning ‘to be loved and treasured’.