Dress Drive Benefits Lawrenceville Residents
Posted by plasket2 on April 21, 2008
by Kelli Plasket
Image details: Woman in dress served by picapp.com
Lawrenceville’s HomeFront, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to “end homelessness in Central New Jersey by harnessing the caring, resources and expertise of the community,” celebrated its successful residents with a combination prom and graduation on Friday, February 29 at their Family Preservation Center, according to Anita Hanft, Director of Mission Advancment at HomeFront.
HomeFront offers housing, ranging from emergency to transitional to permanent, for the homeless families within its system. Adults are given the opportunity, under HomeFront, to receive extensive job training, get a GED or high school diploma, and get computer-certified, Hanft said in an interview before the ceremony, which is held in celebration of those who successfully complete programs under HomeFront.
The participants in HomeFront’s programs, Hanft said, never had the opportunity to go to a prom or graduation in their youth, so the organization is giving them that chance to celebrate. Hanft estimates that about twenty participants will be honored in the February ceremony.
Earlier in February, HomeFront held a formal dress drive to collect dresses in good condition to be worn by participants to the ceremony. They were especially in need of dresses in sizes 12, 14 and 16 that could be worn by older women, as most of their donations come from recent teenage prom-goers. Though the official formal dress collection ended on February 18, Hanft encourages anyone who has a dress no longer being used to continue to donate, as they reuse the dresses each year at various events.
“We use the dresses year after year,” she said. “They delight people over and over again.”
