Priceless Prom Gown Program Press

Rite of passage

It is a rite of passage for adult women: Spending hundreds of dollars on lavish bridesmaids dresses you will never wear again.Those relics of nuptials past, then hang lifeless in the back of closets — bright colors and shiny tafetta hidden forever.

But Carol Lanni of Haverhill has found a way to give them new life. Those dresses can now make a memory for girls who dream of being glamorous on their prom night, but don't have the money to do so.  She is collecting gently used gowns for high school students — a campaign she calls Priceless Prom Gowns.

On Thursday, May 1 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Days Inn Hotel in Methuen, girls can get a gift previously reserved for fairy tales. If they can't afford a dress for their prom, Lanni will give them one free of charge.

And they'll find racks and racks of potential. Lanni has over 450 dresses in a plethora of sizes, shapes, styles and shades. All the girls have to do is bring proof of school enrollment and a parent or guardian.

Lanni said her Priceless Prom Gowns program is for everyone in need, not just girls in the most dire economic situations. For some families barely making ends meet, the excess of a prom just doesn't fit into their budget.

"Just because you have two working parents doesn't mean you're all set," she said. "Sometimes a dress can run $300, and a lot of people don't have that money. That's $300 a family can spend on gas, electricity, groceries or car insurance. A lot of people are in a situation like that."

Lanni came up with the idea for Priceless Prom Gowns when she was working at the Greater Lawrence Technical School. As prom time neared, Lanni was excited her students would get to experience the culmination of their high school lives, but quickly noticed that some girls weren't excited because they weren't going.  "I heard girls saying that their parents didn't have the money for a dress, or that they didn't live at home and couldn't afford it themselves," Lanni said. "Then I thought, wait a second. I know so many women who have dresses in their closets. I know I've been a bridesmaid at least 12 times. So I sent out a blanket e-mail to everyone I could, all the way to Florida, and it just kept getting passed on and passed on."

Before she knew it, donations were coming from all over.  "Word just spread, and it got really big," Lanni said.  When John Anton's Cleaners in Andover offered to clean all the gowns free of charge, Priceless Prom Gowns had officially arrived.

High school girls are thrilled to be the new owners of beautiful dresses, and the people donating gowns are equally happy to lighten their closet, especially for a good cause.  "They really are happy to help," she said of her volunteers and donors. "They're so glad to do this because a lot of them had been trying to figure out what to do with the dresses."

Lanni said that even the most retro, seemingly out-of-style dresses could find a good home. Some girls are handy with a thread and needle and can make the dress their own. And some love the uniqueness of a funky, '80s gown.  Lanni is happy she could help teenage girls get glam for one of the biggest events of their lives. And she's looking for ways to allow her nonprofit to help more people. Lanni is checking out fundraising possibilities and hoping to forge relationships with local spas and nail salons so she can help the girls get ready from head to toe. For the boys, she wants to reach out to local tuxedo renters. In Lanni's opinion, everyone deserves the chance to attend their prom.

"It's the end-all-and-be-all of high school," she said, "your high school's red carpet night. It's like a rite of passage. I just think it's so important."

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Published: January 20, 2008 12:00 am         

A Cinderella Story: Haverhill woman, high school students help make prom affordable

By Zach Church , Staff writer
Eagle-Tribune

Prom isn’t just about the gown. It’s about the tickets, the shoes, the limo, the tux, the corsage, the hair, the jewelry and the dinner. 
As funny as it may be to joke about the cost of all that, it can be a serious financial strain on a family’s budget.  Carol Lanni knows. She and her mother worked hard to make ends meet while she grew up in East Boston.
”I could show you my prom picture,” Lanni, now of Haverhill, said Friday. “Everything I had was borrowed or handed down.”
But working with a group of seniors at Greater Lawrence Technical School, Lanni is trying to lighten the financial load for young women and their families.

So 2008 marks the second year of the Priceless Prom Gown Program, a regional fundraising effort to put girls in gowns they otherwise couldn’t afford.  In 2007 the group collected about 200 used dresses, altered them and handed them out to about 120 area teens. This year, they’re dropping the unintentional ‘80s prom theme and going for a more modern look.  ”Last year was last minute and it was mostly older dresses,” 18-year-old Jatnna Christopher of Lawrence, a senior at Greater Lawrence said. “There were a lot of freaky dresses.”
So for 2008 proms, the group is looking for donations of new dresses, shoes and jewelry and financial donations to help rent tuxes and pay limo bills for the guys.

Right now, Lanni has about 300 gowns in her home. Half are in the attic. The rest have taken over a spare bedroom, stuffed inside plastic storage bins, hanging in closets and massing in a pile on the bed.  ”It just looks like a bunch of fabric thrown on a bed,” Christopher remarked.

Students from Lawrence, Methuen, Haverhill, Andover and North Andover are all welcome to a dress, no questions asked. Returning them after the prom would be ideal, but is not required. The group will hold giveaways starting next month in locations to be determined. The urge to help includes searching out donated maternity dresses for pregnant teens.
Lanni has applied for nonprofit status for the group and started a Web site. She’s had help from local shops like The Classic Couple in Haverhill and is using Craigslist.com to bring in donations from across the country.  So the style of work has shifted. Last year, Christopher, Dametta Simms, 17, Jury Martinez, 17, and Chayanna Belez, 17, all of Lawrence, spent hours cutting dresses apart and sewing them back together to build custom gowns for their peers.

This year they must turn their focus to fundraising skills, though their primary focus is “letting more people know” about the program, Martinez said. A first shot at bringing in cash in December didn’t go so well. The group scheduled a fundraiser on the same night as a series of school dances. The intake was paltry, around $50.  But that’s just one growing pain for a program that Lanni hopes to keep going, though she admits it will be tough to continue when the teens go to college. All the girls are fashion design students at the tech school.

Martinez has earned a full tuition scholarship to the state school of her choice. Simms is hoping to enter a nursing program at Georgia Tech. Christopher will go for an associate’s degree in fashion at Bay State College.

But first comes the prom and before that, more dresses.   

Published: March 27, 2007 12:00 am         

Fairy tale comes true for local Cinderellas

By Yadira Betances , Staff Writer
Eagle-Tribune

They will indeed be Cinderellas on prom night Girls can get free dresses this week

By Emily Young
Staff writer

Eagle Tribune, April 28, 2008

It's supposed to be the most magical night of a girl's life, but not every potential Cinderella can afford her prom. All that will change this week when a local fairy godmother will give away 400 gowns to prom queens in need.

Haverhill resident Carol Lanni kicked off the Priceless Prom Gown Program last year after learning that many students at Greater Lawrence Technical School in Andover weren't attending their prom because of the associated costs.

"I'd get more excited about prom than the kids did. They'd say, 'I can't afford to go.' So I thought to myself, I have dresses in my closet and have friends who do, too," Lanni said. "I'm still a fledgling at organizing, so I'm very excited that I have other people who want to help me this year."

Any student who needs a prom dress can attend the giveaway Thursday in Methuen as long as she is accompanied by an adult. Once they are at the event, girls will make an appointment with a volunteer personal shopper. Each student can receive one dress, as well as accessories and makeup if available.

Dress donations this year came from local business owners, such as Christina's Bridal in Andover and Classic Couple in Haverhill, as well as local residents with deep closets.

Karla Dulin, owner of Tres Jolie Gifts in North Andover, maintained a donation drop-off box. Dulin's husband, Todd, encouraged a couple of students at North Andover High School to hang posters and make announcements during study hall.

"We rounded up about 50 dresses that were really beautiful," Karla Dulin said. "This was a very easy way to help out a great cause. It's a neat organization because I don't think most people really know that a lot of girls don't go to prom because they can't afford the dress."

John Anton's Cleaners in Andover not only maintained a collection box, but also cleaned at least 100 dresses for the giveaway. Chinku Galiney — owner of RSVP etc., a stationery store in North Andover — donated her services to create brochures, fliers and business cards. Other people — store owners, schoolteachers and Department of Social Services employees — helped spread the word.

Future donations are already pouring in from an unexpected place. Upon learning of the organization, a Rhode Island high schooler asked Lanni if her classmates could donate dresses from this year's prom as part of a senior class project. Lanni said it would be just fine.

"I come from a single-parent household and I know it's hard," Lanni said. "I had to borrow dresses to go to people's proms. Even for my eighth-grade graduation, I had to borrow a dress from my boyfriend's sister. For some people, a dress is a luxury."