Volunteers gathered in the basement of the Elks Hall in Williams Lake Saturday where they lovingly cut, traced, and sewed donated wedding gowns into ‘angel dresses’ for grieving families.

“I’ve had four losses myself so it’s something that touches home quite a bit,” said BC Angel Dresses coordinator, Bobby-Jo Kowalski.

“I started out in Saskatchewan and we started the B.C. chapter with my mother-law and here we are.”

Dresses made from Saturday’s sewing event will be delivered to hospitals across the province including Cariboo Memorial where they will be offered at no charge to grieving families whose babies don’t get to come home.

“Samantha has known about the whole process from the get-go and she understands what exactly what we’re here to do, why we’re making dresses, and that she has four siblings who didn’t make it,” Kowalski said of her daughter who was stationed behind a sewing machine assisting.

“She also loves to sew and has watched me sew and has watched her grandma sew so she gets right in there. She’s seven years old and she’s making little dresses.”

While BC Angel Dresses is not currently accepting dress donations at this time, Kowalski said they are still accepting other types of donations whether it is to help with packaging supplies, printing supplies, and or shipping costs.

She said they hope to have such sewing events in Williams Lake every three months.

“We haven’t been able to accept new donations since 2017 simply because we had such an influx of dresses from 2014 when we started to 2017 and not enough seamstresses to keep up with the demand,” Kowalski said.

“We’re hoping to hold more and more events like this across the province to bring people out to participate especially those that really want to support and help out but are put off because they don’t know how to sew. Coming to an event like this it gives an opportunity to use scissors and a marker and trace out patterns and still be a part of the overall scope of the group.”