Dolls aren't just for the recipients

Staff

Published Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Suffolk News-Herald

For the past few years, members of the Woman's Club of Suffolk have been changing the lives of hundreds of children in third-world countries. But every time she goes on a missionary trip to deliver the Club's offerings, Melva West has felt the kids change her life as well.

"I learned a whole new division of love," said West, the club's treasurer and former president, who took her first trip to the Philippines in 2002. She's also gone to Kenya and China, and will embark on her second trip to Cambodia in March.

"Their hospitals don't have laundry services or cafeterias," she said. "If the family doesn't bring them food, they don't have anything to eat. If they don't do their own wash and lay it out over the hospital lawn, the clothes don't get washed."

In conjunction with Operation Smile, which has been performing cleft lip and palate operations for third-world kids since the early 1980s, clubs from across the state make hundreds of dolls for the youths every year. On Tuesday morning, the Suffolk group, which is a member of the General Federated Woman's Club, met at Eastover Wilroy Ruritan Club to sew together roughly 100 stuffed figurines.

"Doctors draw a pretty face on the dolls to let the children know what they're going to look like when they're better," said West, pushing cotton into a doll. "I believe that God gave us two hands for a reason - one to help ourselves and one to help each other."

Roughly 20 members gathered at the shop to put their hands together, as some sewed and others stuffed.

"You can see the enthusiasm here, and know that it's worthwhile," said Dee Hill, the club president. "January is normally a pretty slow month, and I thought that instead of having a speaker, we could do this. The women couldn't get their sewing machines out fast enough."

On Monday, the dolls will be delivered to the Operation Smile headquarters on Tidewater Drive in Norfolk.

"It's nice to get together and do the work," said Anne Rountree. "It takes a long time to do them, but it's a good feeling to know that we're helping them."

Nearby, Louise Whitt measured some fabric.

"You always feel like you've helped somebody," she said. "We're increasing knowledge of people who don't have anything. It doesn't always take big things - little things can mean so much."

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