Lauren Nicolella
Staff Writer
What happens to all those prom dresses after they have been worn?
Two students from Friends Select School, juniors Charlotte Kaplan, and Regan Loughran Moore are answering that question by planning a prom dress drive for area high schools.
The collection will take place on Saturday, April 7th from 12-3 at their building located on 17th and Ben Franklin Parkway. An advisory memo will be sent out soon with more information to give interested students a reminder.
The idea for this event was from Charlotte’s grandmother, who had an event like this at the high school she used to teach at in Massachusetts. She suggested that they create a dress drive, and include the neighboring high schools too.
“Our school’s service club, Helping Hands, planned a Coat Drive earlier in the year for people experiencing homelessness/low-income household,” explained Loughran Moore. “The Prom Dress Exchange will be executed similarly to the Coat Day, in which people come and experience a mini-popup shop in our school’s gym.”
With prom season slowly approaching, they have specifically opened it up to inviting neighboring schools and SLA was one of those granted access.
“We wanted to invite other schools so that we had more of a dress selection and so other girls had the same opportunity as our school,” Kaplan said.
Dresses that are donated will immediately be available for purchase, with the proceeds of the sales supporting a local charity. The organizers suggested $20 as the maximum cost of a dress.
There are requirements for those who are donating dresses: no big stains, lightly worn or new, all sizes are accepted, and no casual dresses are allowed.
As thoughts swirl around of what is going to be worn at junior or senior prom, the season is slowly approaching and it can be very expensive to buy what you want to wear. This event allows those who are interested to get dresses at a decent price and to also give dresses to the drive that will not be worn again.
Junior Alexandrea Rivera attended a prom last year and sold the dress she wore.
“I then used that money to buy my prom dress for the next year.” Rivera said she does not keep her dresses, and that her wedding dress would be the only one she would consider storing away. She also mentioned that she would use an app called Poshmark to sell a dress, or would talk to a friend about it.
Charlotte Kaplan and Regan Loughran Moore are super excited for the event to take place, and can’t wait to see if there are SLA students who will end up donating or finding a dress at their school. Students who want more information can contact the organizers at reganlm@friends-select.org or charlottek@friends-select.org.
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