Home    |    Fairy Godmothers    |    History    |    Katie Shirley    |   More about Katie   |    Events    |   Fundraising    |    Contact Us

Events

2008 Prom Fair - A HUGE Success
Like the rings from a pebble tossed into a wishing well, many different aspects of a community may end up benefiting from the success of a project like the recent Katie Shirley’s Closet/ Fairy Godmother of Rochester event. The whole idea of the project is to make it possible for any girl that would like to attend her school prom to do so even if the cost of purchasing a prom dress would otherwise make it impossible. Through pre-prom publicity, young women are encouraged to donate their gently used prom dresses to our organization. We pick them up, sort them by size and color, primp them up a bit and then set them out on racks in a convenient location for the next Cinderella to come in and choose her gown for that special evening.
“. . . and then she lived happily ever after . . .” 

OK, now here’s how it really works: It takes a minimum of 150 volunteers to coordinate and run the entire event. It takes generous business leaders willing to donate space to store and showcase the dresses. It takes businesses that are willing to lend their public relations expertise to advertise the event through public media outlets.

The truth is that for many girls in our own community, attending a prom and feeling special for one enchanted evening is not in the realm of possibility because there is just no budget for them to tap into for an “extra” like one evening at the ball.

Katie Shirley liked to say that “Everyone should feel like a princess for a day.” It is also said, “It takes a village to raise a child.” That is the focus of our event, our mission statement. This recent event inspired true community- wide participation and not just the young ladies that walked out with gown and jewels in hand were at the receiving end. We had no idea how many people would respond this year to our appeal for donations of dresses, space, practical expertise and community spirit. This event turned out to be such a huge success not only because of the donations that came forward but also because so many that participated told us how blessed and grateful they were to be able to give something back to our community.

It is in giving that we receive. Many affirmations of this spiritual axiom were manifest during the weekend of the event. Generally, the first person in the chain is the one that donates the gown. They receive the satisfaction of knowing it might again light up the evening for someone. We had volunteers that picked up and sorted out the gowns by colors, sizes and styles. There were volunteers to make any necessary alterations on the spot to the dresses, happy to put their sewing skills to work. We had volunteer personal shoppers to guide the young women through the maze of all the racks full of donated dresses and then to pick out appropriate accessories. Many of our volunteers were happy to donate their own accessories to go with the gowns so that we could totally outfit the girls. We had a well known local bead studio offer materials and space to enable our volunteers to string bead necklaces and earrings. The piles of gowns were organized for display by many patient volunteers on donated racks. There was one dad that sponsored a dress drive in his office even though his own daughter is just three years old. There were individual college students, sororities and clubs that ran dress drives for our benefit. Some put their online “Facebook” connections to good use so that we received dress donations from all over the country, including Maine, Michigan, and California. Pretty amazing!

We had young college women that volunteered to be personal shoppers and they told us how much satisfaction they received in doing so. We had a family that used our event as their “Family Project” to meet one of the prerequisites of church confirmation. There was a small army of volunteers just required to transform the shell of a former store location in a suburban plaza into a Hollywood-themed showroom and alterations studio. That in itself was amazing to see as people and businesses donated paint, old movie posters and energy to our own version of extreme makeover. There were so many volunteers that were happy just to donate their time and receive back so much satisfaction from the whole experience.

This is a positive report back to the community that together we most certainly held a very successful event. This is a thank you to all who participated and made it a success and I like to think it closes the perfect circle of community like those ripple rings in the wishing well. This event would have made our daughter (Katie) proud to be apart of. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your help in making it such a success. 

Stephanie Shirley 
Katie’s Mom forever
_________________________________________________________