Church group transform tees into diapers for Hondurans

OXFORD – Your oversized, shapeless old T-shirts can easily be turned into diapers for poor families.

So Mary Kay Marston of West Paris and Sally Harney of Oxford have launched a drive to collect at least 500 shirts that can be quickly snipped and sewn into washable diapers for mothers in Honduras who cannot afford extra cloth.

“I just wanted to do something to help babies and the moms to have an easier time in infancy years,” Marston said Wednesday. “And this is simple enough that I can do this; that we all can do this.”

Marston and Harney belong to the Oxford Advent Christian Church on Route 26. They are inviting people to drop off new or used size large or extra-large T-shirts – in any color and with any kind of design or wording – at the church on Route 26 in Oxford.

The large shirt size makes a perfect diaper, said Marston, who learned about the need of mothers in the Central American country after speaking to an American nurse involved in a medical mission there.

In the meantime, sewing sessions are being held at 6:30 p.m. every Monday at the church for anyone who wants to transform the shirts into diapers. Marston said someone with a serger-stitching sewing machine would be especially welcome.

When the 500 T-shirts have been collected and sewn into diapers, they will be bundled up and shipped to Honduras.