Donated Gowns Help Some Shine At Prom

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This is high school prom season. Prom can feel like a Cinderella night for some teenage girls. And for families living on the economic edge, it's a challenge. Reporter Ana Tintocalis of member station KPBS reports on a project that provides prom glamour to girls who might otherwise have to go without.

Unidentified Woman #1: Oh, wow. That is cute.

ANA TINTOCALIS: Eleven teenage girls huddle in a small dressing room in downtown San Diego. Gowns of sparkling sequin and colorful chiffon are flung over the door and hung on racks. The girls try desperately to pull up zippers so they can squeeze into their favorite dresses.

Unidentified Woman #2: So, pull it up a little more.

TINTOCALIS: This isn't an everyday experience for these girls. Each is either homeless or comes from a family living below the poverty line.

Ms. DAWN HORTON(ph): Right now, I'm with my mom, my sister and my nephew and my niece.

TINTOCALIS: That's 17-year-old Dawn Horton. Dawn attends San Diego's Monarch School, a high school for homeless kids. Dawn's been out of a home for five years. Now she's staying with her sister.

Ms. HORTON: We're in just a little, tiny apartment. And so I sleep on the floor, and my mom sleeps on the couch. And then my nephew and my niece sleep with my sister in the room. So I can't really afford a lot, because I'm so (unintelligible) being homeless.

TINTOCALIS: The Monarch School tries to make teenage life as normal as possible by hosting events like high school proms. And this year, all 11 girls are being treated to their very own free prom dresses.

Ms. ANGELA GEISLER (Founder, Princess Project, San Diego): We're really excited today. We have a ton of dresses, and everything is color-coordinated.

TINTOCALIS: It's called the Princess Project, and it started up in the Bay Area about six years ago. Angela Geisler is the founder of San Diego's version. The idea is to allow high school girls a chance to pick the perfect dress from an arsenal of donated formal gowns. The result is a dizzying array of dresses in every size and every color.

Ms. GEISLER: It's just so amazing to see a girl try on a formal dress, and it's something that every woman can relate to, you know, putting on a dress that makes you feel good and beautiful.

TINTOCALIS: Once the girls settle on dress, they move on to accessories: a room full of earrings, necklaces, evening handbags and shawls. It's here where we meet up again with 17-year-old Dawn Horton. The tall, wide-eyed teenager is wearing ripped jeans and sneakers, a stark contrast to the dress she's holding on a hanger: a full-length, strapless dress in varying shades of blue, her favorite color.

Ms. HORTON: I skateboard, and I do a lot of, like, boy stuff. Like, when I put the dress on, I just feel like a girl. It made me feel more girly. It made me feel more confident. And I'm, like, wow, my mom would be so happy that I put a dress on.

TINTOCALIS: And organizer Angela Geisler says the sense of being an independent, confident young lady is exactly what the Princess Project hopes to inspire. The Monarch School will hold its prom in early June at the San Diego Zoo. For NPR News, I'm Ana Tintocalis.

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