Last week on Twitter, a woman I follow posted a tweet about helping underprivileged girls who need dresses for prom by donating your old bridesmaid dresses. I sent @HouseOfJules a reply and she filled me in on The Cinderella Project.
This organization gets prom-caliber dresses to girls who can’t afford it, and frankly, I’m NEVER gonna wear that dress again (And honestly, I think there’s something implanted in a bride’s brain that makes her TELL her bridesmaids, “SURE. You can wear that again!” In reality, there’s no way you’ll ever wear that again — how many of your life’s occasions call for that many yards of satin?).
Jules has written a pretty thorough blogpost about this project on her blog (here’s the link), but the jist is this:
- Go digging in your closet and find your dress(es)
- Take ’em to get drycleaned*. Jules says that some cleaners are nice and will comp you if they know it’s for a charity. My dry-cleaner was NOT nice, but I only paid about $13, so I can totally live with that.
- Send the dress to Jules (FIRST, email her at CASAJULES at the gmailio for specifics)
That’s It.
That’s all. Easy, right? And it frees up some closet space for the other stuff you’ve been wanting to buy.
As for me? I picked my dress up from the cleaners this morning – yards of periwinkle blue satin that, no, I never did wear again. Tomorrow, I’ll package it up and send it, and smile about how easy it was and my extra closet space.
*If you can’t afford the drycleaning, let Jules know. The organization would rather have your dress and have the challenge of getting it cleaned than not have it at all.
About sarah
That’s so cool Sarah! What a fabulous idea!
You may not believe this but I have 3 hanging in my closet that were a “youth” of mine from when I was a youth minister. She wanted to “Give them away” I was going to Ebay them. Then I have some bridesmaids ones from 2 weddings I was in, both are super cute. I have 5 dresses. Where do I donate?