Local businesses kickstart annual prom dress drive
TEWKSBURY >> Prom season is around the corner, which means juniors and seniors are already shopping for dresses.
For some high schoolers, however, their dream prom experience is financially out of reach. Dresses alone can cost hundreds of dollars.
Local organizations, including Anton’s Cleaners, want to change that.
Since 2005, the laundry and dry cleaning business — now partnered with Jordan’s Furniture and Enterprise Bank as Caring Partners, Inc. — has run Belle of the Ball, accepting donations of used prom dresses that they clean and offer to young women across the state, completely free of charge. From Feb. 6 to March 26, they’ll be collecting customers’ dresses to give to teens who need them.
Enterprise Bank and Jordan’s Furniture will also be donation sites, where residents can drop off dresses.
After receiving a referral from a guidance counselor, teacher or social service agency, students across the region will be invited to the annual “Boutique Day” at Hynes Convention Center in Boston, which will be filled with rows of dresses to choose from.
Arthur Anton Jr., COO of Anton’s Cleaners, said he expects 1,000 girls from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and they’ll have about 600 volunteers to help out. As the father of a daughter who went to her own prom about 10 years ago, Anton said the day also “brings tears to (his) eyes.”
“You can see these young girls change. By the time they get their dress on, they’re smiling and they’re happy and we have a runway they can walk down,” Anton said.
“It really is a special day.”
Because of the pandemic, schools outright canceled rite-of-passage activities, like senior trips, graduation ceremonies and, of course, prom. That forced Caring Partners, Inc. to also cancel Belle of the Ball for a couple of years, but Anton said they’re coming back in “full force.”
Macy’s donated 2,000 new dresses to the organization, Anton said, right when their prom dress season ended prematurely in spring 2020. To come back and offer this service to high schoolers again is exciting, Anton said.
“I had a mother, she started crying, she said, ‘I wouldn’t have been able to afford to send my girls to the prom, and this allowed me to send them,’” Anton said. “It made me cry.”
When they first launched the donation drive, Anton said they started out of the gym at Simmons College, welcoming about 200 girls. It’s grown significantly since then, with up to hundreds of attendees at a time, he added.
Anton estimates they’ve served nearly 6,000, and more than 76,000 dresses have been collected, according to the website. They now also have two buses that take girls from Lawrence and Lowell down to Boutique Day, Anton said.
Jordan’s Furniture advertises heavily prior to the event, Anton said, by putting out messages on television and local radio, which helps their mission.
Caring Partners, Inc. recently completed the “largest coat collection” drive in New England, gathering more than 31,000 coats this winter, according to a press release. Similarly to the prom dresses, Anton’s Cleaners cleans the jackets and works with distributors to allocate them.
Alison Burns, community relations and customer experience officer at Enterprise Bank, called Belle of the Ball “a fantastic program” she has the pleasure of attending. As a “community bank,” the organization has supported the dress drive for several years now, first as part of collection drives and now as a corporate partner.
High school juniors and seniors get to pick the prom dress of their dreams and leave feeling confident, Burns said. In a word, Burns said, the drive is “empowering.”
“It is so exciting to help young women in our community find a dress of their dreams and leave happy and feeling confident,” Burns said. “I love volunteering at Boutique Day. The smiles on their faces say it all.”
Through the dress drive, Burns said participants may feel inspired down the line to gift that same prom magic and charity to other girls in need.
“The hope is that then the girls are taking those dresses, after they’ve worn them, and then donating them back,” Burns said. “It’s that paying it forward. It’s just a real, feel-good experience.”
For more information on ways to participate, volunteer or become a community collection site, visit https://antons.com/ belle/. Community members have until March 17 to refer a young woman for the program.