Six years ago, the First United Methodist Presbyterian Church in Montgomery City started a ministry that would make dresses for young children and donate them to churches in East Central Missouri.

Now, the FUMPC Dress Ministry has accomplished a big feat. On the morning of May 20, it made its 2,000th dress. And it isn’t planning to stop making dresses.

“We’re just going to keep going,” said Grace River, one of the ministry members.

The ministry meets on the third Monday of each month at the church. Besides River, other ministry members include Laura Burnham, Mary Carroz, Sharon Davidson, Alyssa Davis, Linda Eatherton, Leslie Gant, Fran Garrett, Janet Heim, Joyce Hendricks, Kathie Hoette, Di O’Bannon, Donna Powell, Crystal Quist, Diane Reagan, Ava Rhodes, Shelly Sanchez and Valerie Spirz.

“Some of us are very experienced sewers,” River said. “We’ve been sewing for years and years.”

All of the members help make the dresses sizes 5-14.

“It’s a production line,” River said. “I cut them out at home and I sent them to Janet Heim, who makes pockets and sews them on. Then she brings them here and they press the hems and casings in. Then, one of the ladies with a machine sews them at the end. Then, we put elastic in the top and the front and back straps to hold it on. Then, it goes back to the sewing machine and they sew it.”

The dress ministry began in January 2018 after one of the seamstresses went to a PEO meeting and found out that the guest speakers took pillowcase dresses to their trips to the Philippines. Three months later, the ministry sent 49 dresses to Montgomery City resident Orlana Gardner when she went to the Philippines.

The ministry began sharing dresses between Hopewell Baptist Church – located off Highway CC in Wellsville – and Winfield Baptist Church. Each year, 170 dresses are shared to each of those churches every year. The ministry also shared dresses to a Presbyterian church in Branson and a Methodist church in Evansville. Dresses were also sent to Nicaragua.

The members make dresses by donations of fabric. Anyone who has clean cotton fabric to donate can drop it off at the church between 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Friday.