Whiz Kid: Birmingham Students Make Dresses to Send to Africa

Every week, Patch spotlights young people in the Birmingham community who are successful, talented and just plain awesome. We're pleased to introduce this week's Whiz Kids:

Seventh- and eighth-grade fashion engineering students

• Age: Seventh- and eighth-graders
• School:
• Achievement: A group of fashion engineering students put their newly learned skills to use by creating dresses for girls in Africa for the project Little Dresses for Africa.
• Key to awesomeness: Led by their teacher Cally Marcuson, the students created the dresses using pillowcases brought from home. The design was simple, utilizing the students' basic skills while allowing them to add frills or personal touches.
  
  "This project fit perfectly into our curriculum as we move through the evolution of designing clothing and help the students become more 'fashion forward,' Marcuson said. "It also provided us with a great opportunity to give back, since this is all about giving back to community and fit with our theme, 'attitude of gratitude.'"
  
  The dresses will be donated to African churchs, schools and orphanages.

Do you know a special student in the community who deserves a round of applause because he or she volunteers instead of playing video games after school? Or maybe your daughter's science club is trying to challenge the way we think about the energy crisis? Or maybe your son's lacrosse team won its first game in three years? Everyone deserves a little attention, and we want to tell these stories.

So email your Whiz Kid nominations to Editor Laura Houser at laura.houser@patch.com, fill out the information given above and include a photo with names and ages. Then, come back every Tuesday for our Whiz Kid spotlight; you never know who will be up next.