Yesterday I had such an incredible volunteering experience that I just had to share it with the Internet! After hearing about the Glass Slipper Project from Brendan's mom last spring, I was ready to volunteer a whole year in advance! GSP collects donated prom dresses, shoes, accessories and more to provide to Chicago high school seniors who could not otherwise afford to buy a dress to attend prom. The program is completely run by volunteers and is donation-based, which was even more motivation for me to clean out my closet and give some new life to all of the dresses I've accumulated over the years.
Girls show up as early as 5:30 on Saturday morning to line up for their "appointments" to get dressed for a gown. Each girl is matched with a volunteer Personal Shopper who leads them around to each station. A vacant Chicago Public School is turned into a boutique for four weekends in the spring and houses over 4,800 dresses, accessories and more. Each room is dedicated to a dress size, and the dresses are grouped by color as well. After selecting a dress, there are two enormous rooms of shoes to choose from, as well as many rooms of jewelry, purses, and brand new makeup generously donated by Chicagoland businesses.
I was sent with two HUGE boxes of brand new shoes that Brendan's Aunt Leah generously purchased from H&M and shipped to the Project for the last weekend. It was love at first sight for the volunteers and the shoppers, and I was so excited when the first girl I dressed selected a pair of shoes Leah had sent!
Overall, this was an incredibly humbling experience, and I left feeling so happy that I had gotten to help girls choose something to wear on a night they'll hopefully remember forever! I leave you all with this gem, circa 2008 Grant High School Senior Prom
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