Operation Prom Dress: Students Fight Appalacian Poverty with Fashion

Caitlin Flynn
Staff Reporter

Professor Julia Jasken of the English department is giving her students a little more than an English lesson this semester, one which will not only give her students experience with planning and promoting events as well as creating fliers, but will also help them recognize how they can make a difference in the community.

“Operation Prom Dress” is a dress drive that was started by an organization known as the Appalachian Poverty Project. The purpose of the drive is to collect donated, lightly used prom dresses and give them to young girls in Appalachia to wear to their prom, since many of the girls in that area do not have enough money to purchase their own. The project’s hope is to give the girls something to look forward to in school, which will hopefully decrease dropout rate in that area, which is currently over 75 percent.

Jasken’s class is called Writing for Nonprofit Organizations, where the students work and write for an area nonprofit organization. They learn skills such as developing letters, grants, brochures, press releases as well as creating other public relations material.

They were informed of “Operation Prom Dress” through Leslie Shaub, who runs the Appalachian Poverty Project, at a community meeting at the nonprofit center located on Clifton Boulevard. Shaub mentioned his need for donations at the meeting, and the students were immediately influenced by his request.

“We happened to be reading about special events in the class, so there was a natural connection for us,” said Jasken.

The students in Jasken’s class figured it would be relatively easy to round up participants here on campus, since a lot of girls probably still have their prom dresses from high school and do not plan on wearing them again.

Jen Noel, a student in Jasken’s class pointed out that by participating in the dress drive, they are “trying to shine a little light in such a dismal area.”

A little light, to say the least.

The class began promoting the event by sending a notification to the college events board to be placed on the college activities arch as well as sending out a campus announcements email to students to inform them about the dress drive. The class also split up and hung 150 fliers, and even held a PR stunt outside of Glar on Monday, April 13. The students spent their lunch hour dressed in prom dresses and suits and stood outside of Glar handing out fliers to promote the drive.

The dresses will be dropped off in the English Department office on the second floor of Hill Hall and will be accepted until May 8. From there, they will be sent to the young girls in McDowell County.

Laura Garrison, a student in Jasken’s Writing for Nonprofit Organizations class has a lot of positive things to say about the drive. “It’s been fun working with everyone in the class to pull it together as a campus event. It really hasn’t taken as much effort as I would have expected, so it’s especially exciting to see the results,” said Garrison.

Although the drive will most certainly be a big success, Jasken points out that the class’s biggest obstacle will be the timing. Since they had just recently learned about the drive, they had to quickly promote the event and get the fliers up. However, she points out that the sooner they are able to get the dresses, the sooner they can get them to the girls.

“I think it’s important for all of us to recognize that there is a lot we can do in our communities, even if we don’t have much money,” said Jasken. “There are always people in need and always ways we can help.”

Garrison definitely feels that the dress drive was a great opportunity for their class as well. “It’s easy to fall into the mentality that Third World poverty is something that only exists in faraway places,” said Garrison, “when really it exists just one state over from us.”