Summer Group Project???

Hi, everyone! I had an idea that I was wondering if anyone else was interested in. (the kinks in the idea are nowhere near worked out) Anyway, questions about another AG-related topic kind of led me to remember that there are a lot of children who may never have the chance to own such beautiful dolls as ours. I also noticed that another generous member donated some play dolls to Toys for Tots.
I wondered about donating dolls like the AG dolls to collections like that. If just one of us did it, it would cost so much! I guess it's a little selfish for me to say "I can't afford to do that" when I just bought two dolls, but I'm saying it anyway. Well, what if we made a summer project of everyone joining together to make a few "collections" of AG dolls to give to little girls?
I mean, so many people here are so talented at taking even the most aged dolls and making them look new again. And the sewing talent of members on this board has created a lot of gorgeous dresses! We could probably find dolls on ebay to fix up. We could get them for a fraction of the cost of new dolls, and y'all would get your money's worth out of those steamers and other gadgets you've bought for rehabilitating dolls' hair.
Many of us probably have doubles of doll dresses/accessories or things that we'd be willing to part with. (I know I'm going to have extras of a few of the short stories now that I've completed my collection) We could each pitch in one or two of these kinds of items, or buy a few extra yards of fabric and make an extra dress or two the next time we make a new dress for our dolls. Or, I guess if someone wants to, they could buy a new AG outfit (and each doll would need her own wig brush). I mean, we could make these dolls some of the prettiest and most well-dressed dolls out there!
I'm sure someone on this board has some kind of job where they can figure out recipients. We could stick each doll in a tote bag (inexpensive at craft stores, and fun to decorate!!!) or something along with some dresses, a hairbrush, and maybe books and/or accessories. We could even do a theme for each doll based on a time period, or girlie things like princesses or ballerinas, or if we found out what the girl liked in advance...
So, yeah, obviously this idea is still pretty rough around the edges, but what do y'all think?

I think that's a fantastic idea! I'm up for it [img]wink.gif[/img]

I'm in, whatever you need I'll help!

Yay!
I know I'm not going to be out of school for a few weeks still, so other folks in college probably won't be, either. This means we should probably be focusing on finals and not doing anything too involved yet. This is probably also a great opportunity to use these next few weeks for organization and planning (unless anyone finds a really sweet deal on a doll).
I'm not the most talented at planning things, but I do think it's a good idea to wait until we have a good idea of how many people want to be involved before we make a final decision on how many dolls we want to get.

I also think even younger girls can get involved with this project if they want to do things like puffy-paint decorating the tote bags or making a necklace for the doll or something... but in case any younger girls are memebers of this message board, I do want to make sure that no one (adults, too!) feels obligated to give up any of their dolls/accessories. This is not about giving up things that make us happy so much as pooling our talents in order to make another girl happy.

(edit: added a space between ideas... it looks nicer)

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ April 26, 2006 11:36 PM: Message edited by: jerseycow6 ]</font>

Oh, and since I'm spending my summer in LA again... Do the American Girl Place stores usually have services like the doll hospital? This might be useful if we find extremely bargain dolls that just might need a new arm...

edit: let me know if you think that idea's too expensive or convoluted or anything and we should stick with dolls that don't need "major surgery."

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ April 26, 2006 11:51 PM: Message edited by: jerseycow6 ]</font>

FYI -- you might want to run all this by a moderator. They normally remind us to be very careful when a brand new board member starts soliciting donations.

The idea is sweet, and people on this board do participate in giving when opportunities arise -- but you might want to have an established board member spearhead things.

(I hope I have phrased this in a way that is not offensive.)

Oh, that's a good point! Thanks. And it's okay, I understand.
To be honest, I'd rather somebody else handle the dolls and things anyway. Like, whoever knows of girls we can distribute them to would hopefully be willing to be a place where we could send everything, with a designation for which doll it's for or whatever. (she could take pictures of the doll "modeling" outfits and stuff for the rest of us) Other than people who might be needed to fix a doll's hair or re-string her or something, it makes a lot more sense to keep the doll in one place so we don't spend a lot of money on shipping things back and forth a lot. Plus, my stepmom would be unhappy if random dolls and stuff started arriving at her house... I don't have my own room, and it's not encouraged that I have many things in the guest room.

Who're the moderators who I could talk to about this? It sounds like one of them would probably actually be the best place to keep any dolls and match them up with dresses and things. It's sad that people do have to be suspicious about people's motives like that, but I completely understand, and I'm so glad you mentioned it early on.

Thanks!
Yeah, I would definately want to do this for bigger girls... at least within the target range of the company- so, eight at youngest.

Otherwise, if someone knew of younger girls, I have an unnamed, homeless ebay bitty baby who is surely sick of living in a box at my uncle's house in the Poconos for the past year who could probably use a good home, too, if we wanted to do bitty babies, too. (she was one of two I bought for my twin nieces two summers ago, but I mistakenly sold one, and I'll probably just spring for buying them both new ones for Christmas, since they have brown hair and this bitty is blonde... otherwise, she would only ever serve as a "model" to try on handmade clothes for my nieces' bitty babies)
Anyway, that's probably a good decision to make, too: whether we'd want to just stick with AG dolls, or bitty baby dolls, too.

So, in an effort to be a little more organized...

List of things to find out so far before starting any actual project:
1. Do people want to be involved?
2. Do we have members who know of little girls we could give rehabilitated dolls to?
Or some kind of program that would know? (my church youth group always did things for local families, and they'd make up "wish lists" - maybe a girl has an AG doll on her wish list?)
3. Have I notified all of the moderators to make sure they are okay with this?
A better question: how do I find out who the moderators are short of checking everyone's user profile when they're online, because I find that a little creepy?
4. Does anyone (particularly if they fall in categories referred to in questions 3 or 4) have space in their home to house items and serve as an assembly point for dolls, dresses, etc.?
This cannot and (a very good point) should not be me.
5. Do we want to focus on working with a couple of American Girl dolls, or Bitty Babies, too?
6. What other things should be considered?

If you can answer any of the above questions, please post here or PM me. Even if you think of answers to numbers 2,3, and 6 but might not be able to or wish to be directly involved, please answer!

moderators for this particular board are djsnjones, judiaci, Georgia, JuliaAM, and OSusannah. There is a small pull down form (type thing) that right under the board's title that says moderators for this board. Moderators for any board are in bold at the top.

I can answer at least three of your questions: [img]smile.gif[/img]

1. Do people want to be involved?
<font color="red">I, for one, would definitely like to be involved! I'm sure there are more people on the board that would like to be a part of this--they just may not have found this thread yet, since the board moves so fast! Give it a couple days, and I bet you'll have all kinds of people wanting to participate. </font>
2. Do we have members who know of little girls we could give rehabilitated dolls to?
Or some kind of program that would know? (my church youth group always did things for local families, and they'd make up "wish lists" - maybe a girl has an AG doll on her wish list?)
<font color="red">Samanthasmom posted about a neat organizastion earlier today in this thread--the thread just got buried a couple pages back. There's also a website called Make A Child Smile that provides addresses to send some very sick kids cards and little gifts. There have been several girls on there that are interested in AG. I've sent a few little things to one of them, Christi, and have always gotten very sweet thank you notes from her mom--in fact, I got one today. These kids may not necessarily be kids that would have never gotten to own a doll, but medical treatments are expensive, and I'm sure sacrifices have been made in order to afford them. Maybe if we were to send things to any of these kids we could just send "stuff" for the dolls they already have, rather than a whole new doll. </font>
3. Have I notified all of the moderators to make sure they are okay with this?
A better question: how do I find out who the moderators are short of checking everyone's user profile when they're online, because I find that a little creepy?
<font color="red">I see Felicity_Fan just answered with exactly what I was going to say. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>
4. Does anyone (particularly if they fall in categories referred to in questions 3 or 4) have space in their home to house items and serve as an assembly point for dolls, dresses, etc.?
This cannot and (a very good point) should not be me.
<font color="red">I'd love to contribute some "stuff" or some cash, but I'm moving this summer (eeek!) so this shouldn't be me either.</font>
5. Do we want to focus on working with a couple of American Girl dolls, or Bitty Babies, too?
<font color="red">It doesn't really matter to me, but I'm sure there are plenty of littler girls out there that would love to have a Bitty. They also tend to go for a far lower price on eBay. Their heads may be a bit scuffed, but maybe one of our talented members (again, not me!) [img]smile.gif[/img] would know how to touch them up with some paint?</font>
6. What other things should be considered?
<font color="red">Nothing that I can think of! I can tell you've put a lot of thought into this. </font>

Ooops...I went ahead and answered them all. Guess I got on a roll there. [img]smile.gif[/img]