This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
This prom season three Saint Vrain Valley, Longmont High School, Silver Creek High School and Skyline High School, came together to run a prom dress drive for the community. This event was called 'Cinderella's Closet' and was held at Que's Espresso on Saturday March 24, 2018.
Two girls from Silver Creek High School, Grace Mc Caffrey and Kira Hills began this event as a school project, saying that a group of girls at their school had done this "same type of event". Grace and Kira had enjoyed the project from the previous year so they decided to repeat this project for their mini-Capstone project this year.
First, Grace and Kira spoke to Silver Creek's student council about their plan for the event and "they loved the idea" so they were able to start reaching out to other schools and plan dates for girls, from all three communities, to "have time to plan everything out for their prom." As it turned out, both Longmont High School and Skyline High school were also planning their own school dress drive. The representatives of each school decided that it would be great to have an event in which they could bring together all the dresses.
Students from Longmont High School were also able to bring men's wear to the event, which they said they'd like to "have more of at our own clothing drive." Longmont High School students also said that their school was the high school with the "highest population of students on free or reduced lunch", so providing a service to people who could benefit from it was a really exciting thing for them.
After this Grace and Kira started contacting venues to hold their event at, with Que's Espresso being the first location to get back to them, they planned a date and time for the Cinderella's Closet event.
Cinderlla's Closet organizers from each school put up posters around their schools, letting their community know of this event. As Grace and Kira said, the three schools combined were able to gather "over 70 dresses of all size and color, which was a bigger turnout than we were expecting."
At Que's Espresso, the group of active teens spent the morning organizing their dresses and setting up full length mirrors in the bathrooms to act as changing rooms.
The event had almost 20 people stop by and take home clothing. This was a surprise to the Cinderella's Closet group, who was only expecting 5 people or less.
Interviewing some of the students who were taking home a prom dress, many said that it was a great idea and they'd definitely like for it to be done in upcoming years. One even called it a "God send for people who don't have the resources to pay for their own prom dress." The students also said it was a convenient and innovating way to get and donate a prom dress thus completing a successful afternoon at the Cinderella's closet dress drive.
