A Plymouth church is asking for donated doll shoes and accessories to help dress hundreds of dolls headed to Detroit children this Christmas.

More than 60 volunteers, including seniors at Independence Village, gathered Aug. 21 to dress more than 300 of them.

The annual event pairs seniors at the Plymouth assisted-living community with parishioners from St. Kenneth Catholic Church to outfit 18-inch dolls for the Detroit Goodfellows, the charity also known as The Old Newsboys' Goodfellow Fund of Detroit. The dolls go to girls ages 4 to 9 as part of 30,000 holiday gift boxes the organization distributes each year to children in Detroit, Hamtramck, Highland Park, Harper Woods, Ecorse, Redford and River Rouge, according to Detroit Goodfellows and C&G Newspapers.

Gayle Snider, 80, of Novi, started the collaboration. A St. Kenneth parishioner who brings Communion to Independence Village residents, Snider said the idea struck her mid-prayer. She had already been sewing doll outfits after her son's workplace began collecting them for the Goodfellows. One year she made one outfit. The next, five. Then she recruited her church sewing group, and they produced clothes for 300 dolls. For the last two years, the group has sewn 400 outfits annually.

"People don't ask the seniors to help out, and it was just a huge source of comfort to all of them," Snider told C&G Newspapers.

The event drew participants with deep personal connections to the work. Sandy Johnston, 83, an Independence Village resident who is partially paralyzed from a stroke, dressed five dolls using only one hand. His wife Darlene, 80, dressed six. Johnston said he came to support friends from the facility's Bible study group.

Beti Kempa, 75, of Northville, the daughter of a tailor, has sewn more than 500 doll outfits over three years. Marilyn Pachota, 85, of Northville, remembered receiving a Goodfellows doll as a child growing up in Detroit near Hamtramck. Karen Christensen, 69, of Canton, helped alongside her mother, Barbara Peterson, 94, an Independence Village resident. Christensen said she first helped with the Goodfellows project as a Girl Scout.

Detroit Goodfellows President Annie Nickert said the organization distributes between 9,000 and 10,000 dolls each year. Each holiday gift box costs about $50 to make.

Organizers say the hardest items to find for the dolls are shoes and accessories. Donations of 18-inch doll shoes, brushes, bows, purses, jewelry and other accessories can be sent to St. Kenneth Catholic Church, Attn: Gayle Snider, 14951 Haggerty Road, Plymouth, MI 48170. Monetary donations to the Detroit Goodfellows can be mailed to P.O. Box 44444, Detroit, MI 48244-0444, or made at detroitgoodfellows.org.