April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
STUDENT PROJECT
This 'fairy godmother' outfits prom princesses
But ask the 16-year-old whose idea the "Fairy Godmother's Closet" was, and she'll point to anyone but herself.
Mary was recently one of a dozen volunteers recognized for her efforts by Albany County Executive Michael Breslin. She was also among almost 460 women of the Albany Diocese honored for volunteerism by Bishop Howard J. Hubbard.
According to Mary's mother, Sandee, the teen said she "felt funny" about receiving the county award "because so many people have helped me."
Help, everybody
Mary, a junior at Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High School in Ravena, turned to her school, her youth group at St. Patrick's Church in Ravena and a local Christian community for help promoting the prom-attire project.
Volunteers pitched in to collect goods, clean and hem dresses, secure commercial space, paint walls and build a dressing room divider. Mary's grandmother donated fabric for dressing room curtains; her teacher sewed them.
But Mary provided the brainpower behind the operation.
"Mary did it all," affirmed Eileen Hoffman, the social worker who helped circulate flyers and nominated Mary for the county award.
Mary had approached Ms. Hoffman a year ago with the idea to collect used prom attire and offer shopping days for students to pick their favorites free of charge. The teen had been inspired by a student she met in Johnstown at the diocesan Christian Leadership Institute, and also by the similar "Cinderella Project" sponsored by Siena College in Loudonville.
Try it here
Students who couldn't afford a prom dress or suit, Mary mused, probably couldn't afford the hike to Loudonville to shop.
In previous years, Mary's school had hosted dress swaps for cash-strapped families, but Mary noticed that some students felt embarrassed to receive help in that setting.
"She's very attuned to those things," Ms. Hoffman noted. "She's just very aware of someone who isn't as privileged as she is."
The Fairy Godmother's Closet - a name Mary says her mom thought of - was born, and Mary spent a year soliciting donations of gowns, semi-formal dresses, suits and tuxedos, jewelry and accessories.
A dry cleaner offered to clean some dresses; Mary's teacher recruited an after-school club to spot-clean others. Members of Mary's youth group cleaned another batch.
Creating a closet
As if all that teamwork weren't enough, Mary noted, the pastor at Abounding Love Christian Fellowship in Ravena offered use of the church's thrift shop for the sale days.
But Mary soon realized that the dresses - by then, numbering more than 100 - needed a more special home. When the church offered clothing racks and an office-turned-storage unit, Mary and her crew transformed the room into a cheery shop with mirrors, spacious dressing rooms and wooden dressers for shoes and jewelry. Donated shopping bags waited to be filled.
Eight girls found their ideal prom outfits in the Fairy Godmother's Closet.
"They were really being blessed by the Lord to pick out a $250 or $300 gown for free," said Charles Engelhardt, pastor of the church, adding that the atmosphere made the students feel special.
Mary plowed through a thick stack of paperwork on forming a non-profit organization, but said she "had this feeling that God was telling me that's not what I should do."
To be continued
Instead, when Mary leaves for college, the project will operate as part of the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America club at Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High.
"I know that when I graduate, it will be in good hands," Mary told The Evangelist.
The influx of used dresses has continued past prom season. Mary plans to add more shopping days next year and raise enough money to buy matching hangers. She's also looking for full-length mirrors; the ones she used this season were on loan.
I feel pretty
The teen believes that seeing oneself reflected in many mirrors, dressed up, is an important part of pre-prom shopping: "When I went to get my gown, that was the best part - that everywhere you turned, you still looked beautiful."
There was one sad note in the tale of the Fairy Godmother's Closet: Expensive costume jewelry was stolen, as well as computers from the accountant's office downstairs. But Mary shrugged off the crime amid the good accomplished by the project.
However, she doesn't feel her awards for the effort are important: "The idea of doing something to benefit other people is the point."
None of her volunteerism - as a choir member, cantor, altar server, catechist and parish council member at St. Patrick's, or as a swimming teacher at her school's pool clubs - is "for me," she added. "It's just the right thing to do."
Mary was the youngest volunteer of a group honored recently by Albany County Executive Michael Breslin. As she looks toward college - mulling over Catholic schools - some say Mary should be a teacher, but all she knows is she wants to do mission work at some point: "I kind of want to see the world, see what else is out there."[[In-content Ad]]
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