Charity « The Catch My Party Blog

Posts in the ‘Charity’ Category

The Priceless Gown Project — What Girl Doesn’t Want to Go to Her Prom?

How many times have you looked at that bridesmaid’s dress in your closet and wondered what to do with it? It’s a little too dressy to pack in a grocery bag and send to Goodwill, but you know in your heart you’ll never wear it again (even if the bride swore on her life it’d make the cutest cocktail dress).

Well, if you live in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area, now there’s a solution. Donate it to the Priceless Gown Project.

: A happy girl in her new prom dress.

This is an organization that provides free formal wear to girls who want to attend their prom but can’t afford a dress. Last year they outfitted over 500 girls by setting up a boutique at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor and over 200 volunteers came out to help.

I was talking to Leslie Collier, the director of the program, and as she was describing the process to me — how each girl works one-on-one with a volunteer to help find the right dress — I was blown away. She said many of these girls don’t have a mom to go shopping with, so the relationship with the volunteer is an important one. Not only are these volunteers providing fashion advice, but they are also there to provide mentoring, information, and connection, something many of these girls really need.

So if you live in the Baltimore or DC area and you’ve got a dress or some time to give, I can’t think of a better way than the Priceless Gown Project.

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Jillian posted on October 5th, 2009
Filed under Charity, Party Planning and Ideas.

My New Favorite Charity — Kiva

I just went to a party, and on the invitation I was confronted with the “your presence is present enough” line, meaning no gifts. However, in situations like this, I always bring a gift, because God-forbid I’m the only one who actually listens. But on this invitation, it said if you still want to buy something for the host, you could buy a gift certificate to Kiva. org, which I knew nothing about. So I did some investigating.

It turns out Kiva is a micro-lending site, that lets you “lend money to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world — empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.” Already interesting, I thought.

So, you lend someone as little as $25 and over 6 months to a year, you get updates on how your entrepreneur is doing and his/her repayment schedule. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend it to someone else.

This speaks to me on a variety of levels. First, it helps people help themselves, which I’m a big believer in. Second, there’s tremendous transparency about how your money is being used so you never feel like you’re paying for some non-profit’s expensive logo redesign. And third, many of the entrepreneurs are woman, and as a female entrepreneur myself, I can’t help but feel a special kinship.

So if you have an extra $25, and want help someone make a better life, like Mrs. Zainabu Mariam of Uganda, who is still trying to raise $625 to to buy charcoal to sell, check it out.