Hundreds of oufits donated
A TOOWOOMBA organisation that provides those in need with free formal dresses and suits is set to expand to other parts of Australia next year.
Toowoomba School Formal Donation Project co-founder Gay Hold said the service already helped students in western Queensland.
“We distributed four times the number of dresses and suits than we did last year,” she said.
“We had dresses going out to Texas, Cunnamulla, Charleville, Dalby and up to Lockhart River.
“We’ve been able to reach so many people.”
Ms Hold said the project, sponsored and supported by a number of local organisations including the Toowoomba South Rotary Club, had distributed about 350 dresses this year.
She said she hoped next year, the fifth year of the project, would be even bigger and better.
“We’re going to go further than Queensland,” she said.
“We’re also changing the name to Project School Formal, as it’s currently got Toowoomba in it and we want to go a lot further than that.”
Before any expansion happens, Ms Hold said there was one last event planned for this year.
“We look after all of Clifford Park Special School,” she said.
“We fitted them all out and will do all of their hair and make-up on the day of the formal. That’s my favourite thing to do.”
As school formal season wraps up, with year 12s graduating last week, the pop up fitting room, which saw hundreds of people walk through its doors, has locked up.
Ms Hold said when she and Paula Lucas began the project four years ago she never thought it would have the impact on people that it has had.
“It’s so overwhelming,” she said. “When we initially thought about this project, we were just two crazy people who thought we could change the world.
“We did.”