OXNARD : Students Tailor Holiday Gifts to Needy Families

Linda Vahl feared the dress she made wouldn’t fit.

After designing the pattern, choosing the material and spending five hours behind her sewing machine, the Oxnard woman decided she had come up short.

“I’m afraid it’s going to be a little tight,” she said Tuesday as she handed the dress to her sewing teacher, Evonne Peterson.

Not to worry, Peterson replied. “We have skinny dolls too.” And in fact, Vahl’s dress fit a baby doll perfectly.

Vahl is one of Peterson’s 75 sewing students at the Oxnard Adult Education Center who have made 300 baby doll costumes this year. The costumes will dress dolls that the Oxnard Salvation Army will distribute to needy families as Christmas gifts.

The costumes ringed the sewing room, hanging from all four walls. Each is different. A Hawaiian muumuu hung by the door. Across the room, an elegant evening dress complete with plastic pearls, decorated a wall.

“I like to dress them up a little,” Michiko Hirai said of her penchant for pearls. Hirai said she has made 15 doll dresses during the year.

“It teaches the students sewing techniques, and it leaves them with a nice feeling,” Peterson said.

This is the 10th consecutive year Peterson has volunteered her class for the doll project, organized by volunteer Joy Yates for the Salvation Army.

Yates will dress the dolls and comb and ribbon their hair before placing the gifts in boxes donated by the Rite Box Co. of Oxnard. The gifts will then be handed out with other toys and food baskets the week before Christmas.

In order to receive the toys and food baskets, families have to apply with the Salvation Army. An appointment can be made by calling 487-2074.

Salvation Army Lt. Sherryle Morasky said she has received applications from 800 families so far. Morasky said the chapter expects to assist 500 of those families. And, as in past years, the Salvation Army expects the dolls to be among the most popular of its toys.

Ten of the dressed dolls will be put on display Dec. 11 in the main Oxnard Library, 251 South A St.

Meanwhile, Peterson’s class has begun making another 300 costumes for next year.

“It’s really fun,” Vahl said. “I have three boys and I never get to make girlie things.”