When Prom Needs Fairy Godmothers — The Giving Gown Foundation Works to Make Sure All Teens Can Enjoy a Special Night

As soon as Destiny Davis walked into the Bammel Church of Christ Teen Center in Cypress she knew she was in a magical place.

In front of the 17-year-old High School for Law and Justice student were thousands of evening gowns, sorted by colors — stark shades of magenta, electric blue, deep yellow, glittery silver, emerald green and every other shade of the rainbow — and sizes, from size zero to 32 XX.

“I was flabbergasted,” Davis says. “There are so many colors, so many things to choose from. It’s overwhelming, but in a good way.”

With the help of her own personal shopper, aka “fairy godmother,” Davis tried on several gowns before choosing one with a black long-sleeve beaded top and dramatic long floral skirt to wear to her prom later this month. She also selected two pieces of jewelry before entering an adjoining room arranged like an upscale shoe boutique filled with trendy footwear to complete her ensemble.

“It’s been a mind boggling experience,” Davis says. “It really helps you feel a princess.”

All around the warehouse-sized room, unbridled joy was evident as teens searched for the perfect prom gown. They took photos of each other with their cellphones, dissecting the pros and cons of a certain gown, and Facetimed their moms to get a final opinion.

“You can’t see my feet, but I’m doing happy feet,” one excited girl says while twirling around to show off her chosen selection.

After trying on several gowns, Channelview High School senior Rachell Cardenas appeared close to selecting a gorgeous purple gown with jewel embellishment. Are you saying Yes to the Dress?,” asks a small group of volunteers surrounding her, parroting the catch phrase from the long-running  TLC reality series.

“Yes!,” Cardenas shouts as everyone cheers.

“She said, ‘I want something narrow in the waist and flowy at the bottom,’ and boom, we got it,” says Ashton Herring, a volunteer fairy godmother who helped Cardenas on her quest to find the perfect gown. “She grabbed four killer dresses right off the bat and all four of them were good, but this was her No. 1 pick. She looks stunning.”

While some traditions have fallen by the wayside, Prom Night continues to be special. It holds an even stronger significance this spring because it’s the first time many Houston area high schools have returned to full-scale proms in two years as the pandemic wanes. But for many high school girls without the means to spend hundreds of dollars for a prom gown and accessories, the night of memories that last a lifetime cannot be fulfilled.

Nearly 15 years ago, The Giving Gown Foundation decided to address the issue head on. The nonprofit organization was formed in 2008 to provide teenage girls facing challenging financial circumstances a free-head-to-toe prom look. In the first year, the organization outfitted 85 young women. This year more than 1,500 teens stopped by a week-long Prom Boutique to pick out a free gown, jewelry and shoes for their special night.

“Our tagline is ‘More Than A Dress,’ ” Giving Gown Foundation president Bobbi Jo Miller tells PaperCity. “The dress is what the girls are most excited about when they first walk in the door and that’s our focus to get them. But they leave with so much more than that.”

After each teen selects her gown and accesories, she attends empowerment sessions while volunteer seamstresses make any needed minor alternations to her dress. This year’s sessions include a financial seminar led by the Junior League of The Woodlands that focuses on budgeting, saving and setting goals, and “Finding the Superhero in You,” led by portrait photographer Julizza Gomez, which emphasizes the special inner beauty, strength and fortitude each young women possesses.

“Prom is a one-time event, and we want them to be able to attend it and feel beautiful and have that special night, but we really want to empower their futures,” Miller says.

Giving More Than Gowns

Two years ago, the Prom Boutique was all set to open when everything had to be abruptly shut down due to the beginning of the pandemic. Thus, this year’s edition featured an overwhelming number of gowns. Many are donated by individuals — Houston-area Tide Cleaners accepts the donations and cleans each gown — and retail outlets. Three Houston-area Macy’s stores donated several thousand gowns from their back inventory.

Early on, foundation officials realized that they didn’t have enough gowns in larger sizes, so they use cash donations to purchase gowns for curvier girls.

“Inclusivity is very important to us and we want to make sure that every girl has not just a dress but options of more than one dress, so we work really hard to make sure we have plus size gowns,” Miller says.

The group also strives to offer looks that teens want. “We had some girls who have requested women’s tuxedos or jumpsuits, so we also purchased some of those. Francesca’s donated a lot of jumpsuits for us,” Miller says.

“We want the girls to feel strong and powerful and we know that everybody has their own individual style. Not everybody wants to wear a sequin ball gown, so we want to give them some options so that whatever they’re comfortable in, they can be their best on prom night.”

Accessories are important, too. In addition to a large selection of necklaces and earrings, there are hundreds of scarves and wraps in a variety of matching colors.

“We serve a wide range of girls from different religious backgrounds. Several of them require to be covered in certain ways, so we offer bolero jackets, wraps, things for the girls who want to honor their modesty, ” says Jeniffer Holland, the Giving Gown director of fundraising.

“Just the right pair of shoes can elevate an outfit,” Holland says.

While there are plenty of selections, the shoe boutique has been affected the most by the pandemic, Holland notes.

“A lot of vendors we received shoes from in the past have gone out of business,” she says. “In 2019, Forever 21 sold us 500 pair of shoes at $3 a pair. They no longer carry shoes. Charming Charlie and Payless went out of business. If we could find a shoe connection, that would be amazing.”

The Perfect Fairy Godmothers

The process of selecting a gown can be overwhelming, so that’s where the personal shopper/fairy godmother comes in. Each teen is paired with a volunteer who helps them navigate the room and offers advice.

“Sometimes their confidence just isn’t there to be able to make a decision,” Holland says. “They get very intimidated. That’s why we partner them in a more intimate setting with a fairy godmother to try and help regain their confidence to make those decisions.

“Often you’ll see a girl come out and several volunteers will say, ‘That color looks amazing on you.’ And you instantly see a physical change in their posture. Their chins are up a little bit more.”

While the girls are having the time of their lives at the Prom Boutique, volunteers say they get just as much out of the experience. Volunteer director Ann Marie Reigrut, who won the Mrs. Texas pageant in 2017, recalls shopping for a prom dress when she was a high schooler without access to an organization like The Giving Gown Foundation.

“I wanted a gown so bad but we didn’t have the financial  means to cover it, so my mom gave me her credit card and I purchased my first gown,” Reigrut says. “I remember crying at the cashier. It made me light up on the inside.

“It feels so empowering. And I still have it. To be able to give free prom dresses to girls is so heartwarming and rewarding.”

Kristin Smalley has been a volunteer fairy godmother since the organization was founded and continues to eagerly support the cause.

“I don’t have kids so I can enjoy them for a couple of hours,” Smalley says. “I can have the fun part of dress shopping. What can you not enjoy? Some of these girls have never had anything pretty in their lives, and now all of a sudden it’s like wow!”

As the Giving Gown Foundation has grown, it has expanded the scope of what it does. It now gives out 10 scholarships of $1,000 each to graduating seniors and a $1,500 scholarship to an alumni of the group, too. Recipients say that the recognition means a lot.

“I absolutely love the Giving Gown Foundation. Being awarded the scholarship was more than a check. It is a whole team of people that believe in me and want to invest in my future. They still send postcards of encouragement,” says Sarah Grace Kimberly, a Kinder HSPVA graduate and University of Houston student who received national attention as a contestant on The Voice.

As morning turns into afternoon at the Prom Boutique and a couple of large high school groups depart with their gowns as a new batch of eager-eyed teenagers await their chance to select a frock, volunteers restock the room with more gowns from an inventory of  more than 8,000 dresses.

“When people hear that they think we don’t need dresses,” Holland says. “But by tomorrow, you will see a huge difference (in the number of gowns). You’ll start to see the bridesmaid dresses,  the 1990 prom beaded dresses.

“And by that last day a lot of the cream of the crop dresses are gone. So we start over.”