The Alternative Press

 

PATERSON, NJ - What are the two most important things a girl needs for her prom? A date…and a dress.

Young girls in Paterson who don’t have a prom dress will have a chance to be Cinderella for a Day, thanks to the Prom Dress Giveaway put together by the Whole Life Community Church and the Paterson Free Public Library.

Once upon a time, when Natasha Celestin-Civil was a little girl, her father would ensure she and her five sisters always looked like Cinderella. “He insisted we always look our best when we went out,’’ she said, “because you never know who you’ll meet.” She enjoyed dressing up and looking her best, and she still does. Now has the opportunity to play fairy godmother to almost 200 lucky young ladies, transforming them into ball-ready Cinderellas.

Celestin-Civil has obtained donations of nearly 200 dresses, many of which she has personally solicited, which she intends to give away. “We all have dresses we’ve acquired through the years,’’ she said, “some that have been worn only one time and others that have never been worn. They sit in the closet collecting dust, and someone else could be using and enjoying them.”

While searching for a dress to wear to a wedding last year, it occurred to Celestin-Civil  that having a dress for a formal occasion is important, and that there were probably plenty of girls in the area who lacked such attire. So on a whim she put together a dress giveaway event with only one month’s worth of preparation, and it went over well, accommodating about 20 girls. So this year she’s doing it again, this time with more organization, more promotion, and of course, more dresses.

Though she lives in Bloomfield, she is a member of the Whole Life Community Church, a Christian Pentecostal church in Paterson. The church supports this endeavor because being active in the community in a positive way is part of its core beliefs. Carlita Singletary, outreach director of Whole Life Community church who is assisting with this giveaway project, explained: “It was kind of last minute last year, so didn’t have chance to do all we want to do. But this year we are very organized; there has been a lot of promotion on Facebook, as well as people spreading the good news by word of mouth.”

Singletary said the church has a number of long-running community-help programs, including those that focus on young people as well as women in shelters, such as the Living in Faith Every Day workshops in which faith-based principles are applied to daily life. “We love what we do, giving back to community—not just with this endeavor, but in general. People don’t have to come out to our church, we still want to be of service to them.”

On Mon., Feb. 13, a registration for the giveaway was held at the library. Every girl who filled out a form with her information and dress size will receive a dress and a necklace from Eat, Pray, Love by Dogeared, the jewelry and gifts company.

In addition, the young ladies had the option of entering raffles for prizes, such as a makeup makeover provided by Celestial Style and Beauty (four of these are available, in which an artist comes to the girl’s house to prepare her for prom) and having their prom tickets paid for (the number of tickets has yet to be determined and is contingent on how much money in sponsorship can be generated from local businesses and the community).

Last year’s event was held at the library. This year in searching for a venue Celestin-Civil tried several places, but she said no one believed she was doing this out of the goodness of her heart. She recalled the reactions to her proposal: “‘Why are you being so nice?’ people would ask. They didn’t believe I wanted to give away these dresses.”

But the library was happy to have them back. When teen librarian Michelle Petrasek heard about the proposal, she enthusiastically said yes. “We do all kinds of stuff here at the library,’’ said Petrasek. “For young people from 7th grade to 19 years old, there are movie nights, book clubs, knitting clubs, short story club, manga club…”

Petrasek was so excited about the prom dress giveaway she helped promote it by contacting the Paterson schools district to get the word out to students. Celestin-Civil has also set up a Facebook page to publicize the event.

One of the young ladies who signed up for the giveaway is Linett Perez, a high-school junior and president of the library’s teen advisory board, which meets once a month with Petrasek to discuss potential teen programs the library could offer. She is planning to attend prom next year and said, “I know about the giveaway because I knew it took place last year. It was good, and I knew it would be great this year, so I didn’t want to miss out!”

The giveaway will take place on April 14 from 1 to 4 p.m. on the third floor of the library. The dresses will be organized on racks, there will be a place set up for trying on the clothes, and there will also be a festive atmosphere with balloons and refreshments. If donations go well there may also be accessories available such as shoes and clutch purses. There are still plenty of dresses available.

Two girls who said they have been good friends since middle school came to register together. Celestin-Civil asked if they were going to tell their friends about the giveaway. One girl looked up and said she didn’t have any friends. Celestin-Civil looked at her in amused disbelief. “That’s your friend there?” she asked, to which the girl replied, “Yeah, and she’s here!”

This exchange prompted a conversation about the importance of friendship, the pleasure of a long-standing friendship, and how good friends are hard to come by. Celestin-Civil recalled her group of girlfriends during their teenage years and the clothing exchanges they would have in which temporary swaps were made to inject novelty into their wardrobes. If something looked particularly good on somebody, the swap became permanent. In this way a collective effort was undertaken to maximize the potential of limited resources by sharing. And the best part of that arrangement as well as this dress-giveaway project? It’s all free.

If you would like to donate clothing and accessories, receive a dress, or just find out more about the project on Facebook: The page is called Donate a Dress and Make a Difference, and the e-mail address is beingcinderella@yahoo.com.