Sunglasses-wearing flamingos, ladybugs, dancing ballerinas and dogs are just a few of the patterns featured on dresses sisters Mary Leonhard and Nancy Zvitkovits have helped transform from pillowcases.

First starting the project in spring 2021, they initially had a goal of making 100 dresses. Then, they increased that goal to 200. To date, they’ve made nearly 400 dresses.

Leonhard and Zvitkovits make pillowcase dresses for Hope for Haiti’s Children, a Christian organization that works to support children in Haiti through different programs, like education access, youth leadership, medical care and crisis relief.

Zvitkovits said she was first introduced to pillowcase dresses through her church, St. Paul Lutheran Church in Sheboygan Falls, which was sponsoring a mission trip to Guatemala.

At the beginning, Zvitkovits started with one pillowcase, but seeing the success she had, she became “more bold” and began taking more than one pillowcase home to transform.

“My husband got really sick of hearing me say, ‘OK, now take a look,’ because I strung them up in the kitchen and that's where I do my sewing. And I'd say, ‘OK, now of all these dresses, which one's your favorite?’ He got really tired every week having to pick out a favorite,” Zvitkovits joked.

She started making the dresses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It really occupied my time,” Zvitkovits said. “I had been a teacher and had retired before COVID hit, just before, and I never really had a lot of spare time to be involved in things like that. So, it was a new step out and I got kind of obsessive compulsive about it.”

Sheboygan schools give and students lend helping hands for a cause

After Zvitkovits started making a few dresses, she shared the project with her sister. They began searching for another organization to make the dresses for and seeking donated materials.

“(I said) this could be a project we could get going into,” Leonhard said. “And we built on that. And I said, ‘Well, if you want to do this, I can get pillowcases.’”

Leonhard, who is the TAPP/Parenting Lab Program coordinator at Sheboygan Central High School, sent out an email to Sheboygan Area School District employees. They began receiving a lot of donations.

Zvitkovits said staff who couldn’t supply pillowcases but still wanted to help found other ways, such as donating thread and fabric.

Lori Roelse, data and instructional coach at Pigeon River and Lincoln-Erdman elementary schools, was one person to see Leonhard’s call for materials for pillowcase dresses.

As a crafter herself — often sewing, quilting, knitting and crocheting in her spare time — she had a surplus of fabric.

“I've been sewing forever, and oftentimes when someone, maybe like their mom, has passed away or grandma and she had a fabric stash, I've had people contact me and ask me if I would like the fabric because they themselves don't,” Roelse said. “So, I'll say yes, because I just love sewing and fabric, and have quite a stash built up, and not nearly enough time to get at it. Then, I remembered Mary's email and contacted her to see if she would like some of it. So, I went through it to see what was suitable for dresses and then sent it her way.”

Roelse estimates she donated as much as two to three copy paper rolls worth of fabric.

She had helped her niece when she was in eighth grade with a similar project, Little Dresses for Africa, so she was familiar with the goal and mission. Roelse said she hopes the children receiving the dresses can feel the love that was put into making them.

"Pulling something off a rack, you know that can be wonderful, too, but for me, I like knowing that my time and ... maybe good wishes or hugs are sewn or knit right into whatever the gift is,” Roelse said. “So, for these dresses, I think the little girls receiving them are told that someone made these for them. There's some extra meaning in that.”

The pillowcase dress project was a first for Leonhard.

“I've done a few little things, but this is my first real total buy-in and I think the reason is because for me, it has true meaning and, plus, with my students it's fun to light that fire for them as well,” Leonhard said.

Leonhard works with teenage mothers in the TAPP/Parenting Lab Program at Central High School, and she said she saw the pillowcase dress project as an opportunity for her students to get involved.

“They became pretty passionate about doing this for a while, which was really very cool,” Leonhard said.

Through a grant that Leonhard applied for, the Sheboygan Public Education Foundation donated an embroidery machine for the students to use, which has quickened the dress-making process. They’ve been able to practice sewing, embroidery, tie-dyeing, appliqué and matching.

“They've learned a lot on lining these things up,” Leonhard said. “It became a challenge because my sister is really awesome at matching. I'd come in ... and throw one on. I said, ‘Who's gonna pick a pattern and who's going to beat my sister with matching?’ It was just a good incentive to get them to (say) ‘Well, that can't be that hard.’”

Zvitkovits said the students did incredibly well.

Sheboygan area hotels answer call for donations

After sending a call out to the Sheboygan Area School District, Leonhard was on a mission to get more pillowcases.

“My husband was pretty excited about this, and he's retired, so he said, ‘I'm going to call some of the local businesses,’ and he started off with hotels,” Leonhard said. “And so, several hotels have been very generous with pillowcases and sheeting. They call us when they have a bunch, and we pick them up.”

Several hotels in the area that have donated materials for the dresses are the Rochester Inn in Sheboygan Falls, Stafford 52 in Plymouth, LaQuinta Inn Sheboygan and Super 8.

Kristi Timgren, who works at the Super 8, estimates the hotel donated two 33-gallon-sized garbage bags full of pillowcases and sheets.

“We just normally throw them away, so instead of just throwing them out, we gave them to them,” Timgren said. “I just hope that it gives them (the children in Haiti) the clothing that they need and that it kind of gives them a better self-worth for themselves.”

Charlayne Boyd, office manager at Hope for Haiti’s Children office in Ohio, said the organization has probably received at least 1,000 dresses from different states directly to their office since they first started asking for pillowcase dresses after a catastrophic 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010. The Haitian government estimates more than 300,000 deaths and thousands more cases of displacement resulted from the event.

"When the earthquake came and so many people lost so many things — they already didn't have very much to begin with — I just think people in the U.S. saw it and saw a need and a pillowcase is something very easy to turn a dress into … so it was a very simple way to, and an inexpensive way to, make a dress for somebody,” Boyd said.

If she's starting with a donated pillowcase, Zvitkovits cuts off the top, creates a curve to make a neckline and then inserts a casing for the elastic. Then, she sews on bias tape for where the arm holes of the dress will be and adds pockets and trim at the top.

Boyd added that pillowcases are easy to wash, quick to dry and thin enough for the hot weather in Haiti, making them a good choice to use for dressmaking.

She said she hopes the pillowcase dresses help provide children with a sense of dignity.

“I think it helps with knowing that there are people that care about them and how they're doing and whether they have adequate supplies or just basic things like something to cover their body with,” Boyd said.

Natural disasters in Haiti call for support

Seeing their progress, Leonhard and Zvitkovits increased their goal of 100 dresses to 200 dresses.

But last August, two natural disasters hit Haiti that made the sisters send their first shipment of dresses before reaching their goal to Bellevue Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee, a church that takes their donations to Haiti on mission trips.

On Aug. 14, 2021, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck southwestern Haiti, killing more than 1,900 people and injuring and displacing thousands more, according to The New York Times. Three days later, Tropical Depression Grace brought heavy rains and wind to the area, hitting the thousands of people already searching for shelter and medical services from the earthquake.

“My daughter had said to me, ... ‘They need those, and they need those now. Why are you not getting them immediately?’ Because we were going to wait till we have the full 200,” Zvitkovits said. “And it was like, ‘Absolutely. Let's get them out to Haiti immediately."

Leonhard and Zvitkovits are working on another shipment of pillowcase dresses through Hope for Haiti’s Children to send out within the next few months.

How you can help

Those who wish to donate pillowcases, or material that can be used to make the pillowcase dresses, such as fabric, sheets and thread, can donate materials at the main office in Central High School, 621 S. Water St., Sheboygan. 920-459-3520