"The Hundred Dresses" Donations Distributed to Girls in Need in Salt Lake
Dear Friends of Young Company, Thank you so much for your help with our dress drive this year. I wanted to let you know that with your help we collected about 1800 dresses! Canyon Rim Academy won the contest with 308 dresses collected and we were overwhelmed with the support and enthusiasm of all the schools that participated in the drive. Certificates signed by the cast will be coming soon to all participating schools. The dresses were donated to two charities: Women of the World and Centro Hispano, as well as several local elementary schools. Below I'm including some fun links to two news stories about the dress drive as well as a copy of an email from a school that received some dresses. Thank you again for your help with this huge project! Rebeca BYU Young Company
December 16, 2011 Dear Young Company Theater Group, I am writing to thank you for organizing your enormously successful dress drive. Greenwood Elementary, a Title One school in American Fork was one of the recipients of your efforts. We received about 400 dresses and were able to place all but two of the dresses in only two days! We are so grateful for your efforts on our behalf. So many of the families in our community really needed something just for them at Christmas time. It was a much welcome gift. Although you collected the dresses and organized them you did not have the blessing of watching them being distributed to our girls. I wanted to share just a few heartfelt stories that helped to really bring the spirit of Christmas home to me. Each one of the girls in our school had the opportunity to try on and pick out their own dress. So many smiles and exclamations of joy were heard throughout the day. The younger girls would try on a dress then twirl around like a princess and refuse to take the dress off again. I saw many dresses at the annual Christmas sing, the choir concert and worn just over their regular clothes. The girls were very excited. Parents had the opportunity to come to the school throughout the day to help their girls pick out dresses and get dresses for little ones not yet in school. There were so many families in need. One grandmother had tears running down her face because she was so grateful that now she would have something to put under the Christmas tree for her granddaughters. She expressed her heartfelt thanks many times blessing those who were able to provide such beautiful things for others. Many young mothers were able to get something for for their infants and shared many hugs as they expressed their gratitude. Others came asking for dresses for neighbors they knew were in need. The PTA volunteers heard many families saying thank you along with the girls as they came down with their classes. It was amazing to me that there was not a single time when a disagreement broke out because more than one girl wanted a dress. Everyone was able to find their own beautiful style just for them. Thank you again for giving this opportunity to our school. We very much appreciate the time and effort you put into making this possible for our girls. I hope that you were able to see just a small part of how much we truly appreciated your service. Sincerely, Jennifer, PTA President and Greenwood Elementary PTA
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