High school students address a need for prom wear

NEWPORT BEACH ? A single red dress hung on a makeshift coat rack in the campus quad during lunchtime Thursday at Corona del Mar High School. Ninth-grader Katherine Lang had donated the garment, which her mother wore to a charity event last year.

The dress was slightly used, but later this month, it will be a first for someone else.

This week, Katherine and seven of her friends organized a drive to collect prom dresses for economically needy girls in Orange County. By the end of lunch Thursday, the collection table had amassed five dresses, and the White Dress retailer in Newport Beach donated around a dozen more later in the afternoon.

“It’s going to be so cool for these girls to have these dresses,” Katherine, 14, said. “They’re going to be so excited.”

The dresses Katherine and her friends gather at Corona del Mar High will go on to Working Wardrobes, a Fountain Valley-based nonprofit that provides clothes to the underprivileged. On April 22, the group plans to hold a day of workshops for girls at the Delhi Community Center in Santa Ana, and the event will conclude with the attendees selecting dresses for their upcoming proms.

Katherine discovered the Working Wardrobes prom dress drive, known as Cinderellas for Life, online a few weeks ago. To extend the campaign to her school, Katherine enlisted her friends to draw and post fliers around campus. In addition, each girl in the group said she would contribute at least one outfit to Working Wardrobes.

Eighth-grader Katie Johnstone, 14, who designed the flier, said she planned to donate two dresses: one that she wore to her sixth-grade graduation and another that she wore at an Easter party two years ago.

“When I was wearing my dress, I felt really special, being 12 years old and graduating,” Katie said. “I know they’re going to feel just as special going to the prom.”

She noted that in a community as affluent as Newport Beach, many girls take formal clothes for granted.

“We can spend money to our own leisure, but they can’t,” she said.

Corona del Mar students who donate to Cinderellas for Life will gain something from the experience. Katherine worked out an agreement with faculty member Denise Weiland, who runs a number of humanitarian clubs, to award three community service hours for each dress donated.

High school students need 40 service hours to graduate, and the girls behind the dress drive ? all eighth- and ninth-graders ? said it offered a way to knock off hours early.