Cinderella steps in to fill Godmother’s shoes at dress exchange

Annette Johnson drew quick compliments on the forest-green formal gown she wore, while her mother clutched a second, sleek silver-sequined dress.

“It just fit perfectly,” Johnson, 18, said Saturday of the satiny gown with pretty floral beading.

For this, the Evergreen High School senior had joined the line outside her school Saturday morning about 60 minutes before the doors opened.

At such a reasonable hour: Nine o’clock, unlike previous stints that began at 3 a.m. in the chill outside the Westfield Vancouver Mall, she explained. This time, she joined only about 10 girls waiting to hunt for the perfect pre-owned prom outfit.

That’s because the massive Operation Fairy Godmother event that lured hundreds of area students each March to pick out a free, or $10, donated dress — and to find discount accessories, free makeup and hairstyling, and to sit for a studio-quality photograph — didn’t happen this year.

In its place, Evergreen High workers, students and community volunteers hustled to organize a much smaller, but no less welcome, version only for Evergreen district students, called Project Cinderella.

There were about 250 dresses on racks set up in the foyer outside the EHS gym, and several makeshift dressing rooms.

Given a voucher for having donated a dress, or by dint of personal need, each participant could tour the cafeteria where stylists with their accessories and tips awaited, joined by the reigning Miss Outstanding Teen Clark County.

Inside a few hours, 50 of 60 girls who had checked in left with a dress, organizers said.

It was a far cry from the 3,200 or so outfits up for grabs last year in the former Mervyn’s store location on the mall’s upper level.

But, following a seven-year run, the Vancouver School District Foundation that spearheaded the campaign chose in January to announce a one-year “sabbatical.”

The reasons were many, said Tara Taylor, Foundation head:

• The event lost its home. Movie theater chain Cinetopia is building an $18 million, 23-screen multiplex in the Mervyn’s space. Such a large, central site is not easily replaced, when set-up requires days.

• There’s a strong trend for many themed dances, shifting from formal prom attire to shorter skirts and semi-formal dresses. These can readily be found at outlets such as Goodwill, Value Village, Spanky’s and other thrift or consignment stores.

• The Foundation weighed soaring challenges in a tough economy. It appears fewer girls who truly needed free dresses got them, for reasons unclear, Taylor said. More-urgent help for struggling families earns priority in the $540,000 yearly Foundation budget, she said. While an army of donors did run the dress swap, it ate increasing hours of labor, some of it paid staff time.

The popular event “surpassed our resources,” Taylor said.

“We stepped back and thought … what else might have greater impact?” Taylor said. “It was a great program, we got great publicity from it, we worked with some great people, but it may have run its course.”

Since she put out the word, reaction has been mostly quiet, she said, lending affirmation.

At Evergreen High, there was another idea. Debbie Winters, longtime school secretary and adviser to its National Honor Society chapter, called student leaders, colleagues and others to action.

“There’s so many students in need, and they kind of depend on” the event, Winters said. “We have all the community volunteers; they were the ones who enjoyed doing it, and felt like it was making a difference.”

EHS junior Louisa Nuffer, 17, is among those honors students. “We were all disappointed, so we thought, ‘We’ll just do it ourselves,’ ” she said.

Taylor was glad to pass expert advice to the new effort.

At the receiving end were grateful teens such as Johnson, who will attend both Evergreen’s prom in April and a church dance (hence, the silver dress). Several gowns still had original price tags of $170 or $180 attached, she and others noticed.

Nuffer, accompanied by her mother, Mary, modeled a gorgeous, periwinkle-blue gown.

And Johnson had dreamy undergarment plans for her green choice, with echoes of Fairy Godmother magic: “I’m going to put a ‘poof’ under it,” she told a friend.

Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.