Moorestown High School’s junior class held a prom dress donation drive on March 5 and 7 with the last day being March 10.
Drop-off will take place at the front of the high school and will be from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Never worn or gently used prom dresses and accessories are needed and, if possible, dresses should be dry cleaned before donating.
“Every year, the student council is trying to figure out different ways to benefit our community and normally we do that through various service projects,” said Maya Patel, junior student council member.
After learning about a prom dress drive that was held at the hospital where her mother works, Patel was eager to bring the idea to the junior class.
“I’ve heard of many seniors who have worn their dresses once for their junior prom and then they won’t wear it again,” she said. “There’s a lot of parents in the community and graduated students who probably have their dresses from high school and they’re probably looking to give it away.”
Patel also explained that the dress drive will give students who were not thinking about attending prom, due to the price of dresses, the opportunity to go.
“We also wanted to collect and distribute the dresses because students who maybe wouldn’t have wanted to go to prom before because dresses are very expensive,” Patel said. “They maybe couldn’t afford a really expensive dress or something that they really liked.”
The junior class is also looking to donate dresses to nearby towns.
“After we determine how many dresses we have, we’re going to determine how we’re going to distribute the dresses and to what towns, whether we will only be open to Moorestown or to other neighboring towns.”
Between March 5, 7 and 10, students will decide how to distribute dresses among their classmates.
Students last attended the prom with all their friends together in 2019. The date for this year’s prom is May 13.
“Prom is going to be a big event since a lot of people, juniors and seniors, are looking forward to it … this is going to be the first time that it’s going to be in the normal form,” said Keyan Vojdani, junior student council member.
Service projects for the high school this year include a blanket and sock drive, a book drive and an animal shelter drive.
“All these fundraisers that we do and these service projects, in the end (they) account for something more than just concrete value,” Vojdani said. “They also help in terms of impacting the world as we’ve seen with the pandemic.”
Patel is grateful to see the junior class’ service project benefit her peers.
“I’m hoping that people who maybe didn’t want to go because they didn’t have dresses or things like that, can now go to prom.”
