‘Project Prom’ offers free gowns for teens

By Harold Gwin

The group has a stock of around 600 dresses from which to choose.

SALEM — A group of students from the United, Salem, West Branch and Sebring schools are doing much more than their part to make 2008 proms possible for everyone.

The students are part of “Project Prom,” an effort to make hundreds of prom gowns available for free to young women who perhaps can’t afford to buy one.

They’ll be handing out those dresses between noon and 5 p.m. today at the Salem Community Center, 1098 N. Ellsworth Ave.

This is the second year for Project Prom, which gave away about 80 dresses last year, said Jill DeRamo, a teacher at West Branch High School and the West Branch prom adviser.

The idea started last year with a group of young people in a church youth group that had students from both Salem and West Branch, DeRamo said.

They saw it as a community service project and sent letters to the schools to see if others were interested.

The program quickly spread to include United and Sebring, and dresses started coming in from everywhere, DeRamo said, noting the group collected nearly 400. A sorority at Mount Union College alone sent 30 dresses and there were even donations coming in from Western Pennsylvania, she said.

Another 300 have been added to the collection this year and, although the program targets girls in Salem, West Branch, Sebring and United, anyone can come in and get a dress, DeRamo said. Some students came from Warren last year, she noted.

“There’s a lot of people who have stepped up to help us,” DeRamo said, adding, “We’ve really been able to help a lot of girls.”

Space has been set aside in the community center to allow the young women to try on the dress of their choice, and those who get a dress will also have a chance to get free shoes, tinted to the color of their dress.

Keith Davis, who operates Create A Color in Hubbard Township, provided that service last year, giving away about a dozen pair of shoes and matching purses. Davis, who said he never got to go to his own prom, said he’ll be back at the community center offering free shoes and purses again today.

There will also be handmade jewelry donations that will be raffled off, and certificates for some free prom hairdos will be given out as well, DeRamo said.

gwin@vindy.com