People can always help and participate in 'Give Me a Chance'

Intermountain Catholic

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The Give Me a Chance store was a stop for Vincentian Superior General Father Gregory Gay (center) when he visited Utah last year. IC file photo

OGDEN — On June 9 Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Salt Lake City will have a clothing alteration night event in which the people of ‘Give me A Chance’ will be providing the service.

"Whoever wants to fix their clothes should go," said Daughter of Charity Sister Maria Nguyen, executive director of the organization. "What we make out of the service will go to Give Me a Chance."

Give Me a Chance, a ministry of the Daughters of Charity, was established in 2010 in Ogden. Originally, it began as sewing and entrepreneurial classes for low-income women and evolved into a store that sells items that they make, such as dresses and suits for First Communion. Since then, more clients, more students and more services have been developed.

"Right now we have the alteration sewing class, a jewelry class and all are free," Sr. Maria said. "We would provide more classes but right now we are constrained with the room."

"We would like to have the word out there that we have beautiful dresses for Communion for the girls and suits for the boys and a variety of stuff for all the churches," said Sr. Maria. "Everybody can come here to buy the dresses or the suits for their first Communion."

Give Me a Chance has experienced growth in their Spanish-speaking clientele.

"Before we didn’t have people reaching out to the Hispanics but now we do and it seems that we have a lot of people that come to the classes, most of them [our clients] are Hispanic," Sr. Maria said.

The classes at Give Me a Chance are free and are mainly for low-income people.

"We provide classes for the low income and we give them the opportunity to help themselves to make income, if they are good at it and work hard," she said, adding that most of the Hispanic people are very hard working, and Give Me a Chance tries to help them to become entrepreneurs. "They just have to have good skills."

The next alteration class will begin June 10. It is free and open to everybody. The community garden is an ongoing program in which everybody is welcome to participate; the jewelry classes are every Thursday at 10 a.m.

People can also participate by volunteering.

The idea for the alteration night came about because the Ladies of Charity from the parish wanted to support and create an opportunity to do more services with Give Me a Chance, "so we can have more to do," Sr. Maria said.

On June 9 Give Me a Chance will be taking orders for clothing alterations at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Salt Lake City, 1085 East 700 South.

The Give Me a Chance storefront is located at 2620 Washington Blvd. Ogden. Visit www.gmacutah.org, or 801-393-0100 or 801-643-1221.