What a difference a week makes! We've gotten such a great response from people donating their dresses to SOS Children's Village. People are retweeting and passing on my link on Facebook and DONATING!!! DONATING DRESSES! Whoo hoo! This morning I even shared our mission with my BNI Chapter (the BEST chapter I do have to say) Elite BNI.
People are reaching into their closets and their friends closets (hope they asked first) and dusting off those dresses that are patiently hanging in the closet just waiting to be worn again.
I've been so moved by the responses I'm getting that with Lent beginning today I decided to give up shopping. Wait, did I just decide to give up shopping. Yep. I think I just went off the deep end. You have to understand, I don't think of myself as a hoarder of clothes, rather I like to consider myself as a connoisseur of retail therapy.
During Lent, its all too easy to say, sure I'll give up Starbucks or chocolate or some other indulgence that I really shouldn't be eating anyway and not really grasp the meaning of Lent. So today, I had an employee of mine ask me what I was giving up and I thought of the kids living at SOS. Its such an amazing group home that keeps siblings together and enriches their lives by helping them find forever homes. The average stay at SOS is two years and in those two years, most girls don't always have access to the nicer things we take for granted. So you can imagine how selfish I felt when I cringed at the thought of giving up shopping for Lent. It would be such a great experience to not shop for myself and instead collect dresses to donate to those girls who are going to prom this year.
SO, I know how motivated you must be now to grab that dress out of your closet and donate it to SOS.
Send an email to 1kindact@gmail.com and we'll contact you to donate your dress. The drive continues through May 1, 2011.
It's already March! Where the heck is the time going? It's crazy to think I just had my 10 year high school a few months ago. (Shout out to Flanagan High School WHOO!!!) I was so fortunate to have parents who could afford to buy me a prom dress and accessories and all the details required to make me feel like the princess I was that night. (And I still am hehe.) Prom night is an amazing night for so many high school seniors. With today's economy and the high cost of prom tickets (I heard $190 for tickets at one school...seriously?) its difficult if not impossible to afford to have a nice dress too. Especially if that teen is living in a group home setting. I've been really fortunate to have a strange, eccentric but loving family to raise me, but there are so many teens who don't have that. Due to one situation or another, they end up in state services and if they're very lucky they end up living at SOS Children's Village.
Its very common for kids who become a ward of the state to be seperated from their siblings and are raised in different foster homes, sometimes never seeing their sibling again. In 1993,Broward Family Court Judge Estella Moriarty opened SOS Children's Village in Broward County with the promise of providing healing, hope and a home. To date, they've helped raise over 250 boys and girls. These kids are given love and a home, but don't always have the means for those special occasions like prom or homecoming. So here's my plan...Let's collect gently used evening dresses..( I have oodles that I can't shimmy my booty into any longer.) and donate them to high school seniors living at SOS who may not have the opportunity to wear a really nice dress on prom night.
Experiment in Kindness
From now until May 1, 2011, I will be collecting your gently used dresses to donate to SOS Children's Village for some really lucky girls to use on prom night. Simply respond to this post and I'll schedule to pick up your donation!
Now that all of those dresses will be out of your closet imagine how much room you'll have for all of your new purchases!
