Plea for help results in deluge of prom dresses (2024)

King Kekaulike High School senior Madison Strand knew she would face challenges when she took on the school’s Becca’s Closet annual prom dress giveaway program as her senior project, but she never expected to have her entire inventory of 300 dresses ruined by wildfire smoke.

Becca’s Closet is a national non-profit organization which helps collect and distribute prom dresses to students in need. It was started by Becca Kirtman, a 16-year-old Florida cheerleader and honor student who helped collect 250 prom dresses for students before being killed in an auto accident on Aug. 20, 2003. King Kekaulike hosts the only Becca’s Closet in the state of Hawaii.

Madison’s original plan was to organize and catalogue the school’s inventory of used dresses and then create a website so students on Maui, Molokai and Lanai could see what was available online. She began last summer by sorting through the school’s stock and culling all the dresses that did not make the cut. Some had problems like stuck zippers and others were old and out of style.

“Some were stained,” she said. “And some, when you tried to pull up the zipper, they would break.”

Next came finding a new home for the dresses and the rolling racks they are displayed on. For years, the racks had been stored in an appropriated boys bathroom upstairs at the school. Madison secured new lodgings in a former drama class storeroom with a long row of cabinets, but, first, she had to clean out all the abandoned props and other items left behind.

Just as she was about to begin snapping photos for the website, windblown fires closed school on Aug. 8 and blanketed the campus in thick smoke. The fires would go on to destroy 20 homes Upcountry and blacken hundreds of acres of pasture and forest. Across the island, Lahaina was consumed by the deadliest fire in modern U.S. history, with at least 100 people killed and 2,200 structures destroyed.

Madison’s mom, Amy Strand, also happens to be the principal of King Kekaulike High School. She recalls talking to the professional cleaning crew hired to prepare the school for the return of students. One of the crewmembers mentioned prom dresses that had been put in garbage bags.

“They said they were smoke damaged and would need to be discarded,” Amy Strand said. “I had to go home and tell her what they said. She asked, ‘What am I going to do for my senior project? Should I switch?’ I asked her, what do you want to do?”

Madison said after a bit of thought, the answer was obvious.

“At that point, it was like, do I really want to continue with this? I thought it was needed now more than ever. It just had to be better.”

Madison penned a letter to the Becca’s Closet headquarters and ended up having several conversations with founders Jay and Pam Kirtman, Becca’s parents. They promised to put out a call for assistance from some of the suppliers who have aided the organization in the past.

The response was beyond anyone’s imagination. Businesses including Macy’s, Windsor, Prom USA, Rachel Allan, Dillard’s and Collette by Daphne sent so many brand-new dresses-many worth more than $500-Madison finally had to call a halt to donations. Amy Strand said the Windsor Organization alone donated 1,000 dresses. Rachel Allen sent eight “giant” boxes of dresses, each item highly stylish and unique.

“The first boxes that arrived, I thought, oh wow, even if we don’t have enough dresses for this year, there will be some for next year,” Madison said.

Not long after, she got a call to come to the office and take receipt of the 1,000 dresses from Windsor. Companies and individuals also sent shoes, purses and jewelry. It wasn’t long before she had some 2,000 brand new dresses, enough to last many years into the future.

The payoff for all the hard work came last weekend, when over three days, Madison and her helpers opened Becca’s Closet to more than 100 girls, all of whom left with a free new dress to wear to prom. Some brought their moms to help them shop and others brought entourages as if it were the TV Show, “Say Yes to the Dress.”

“It was really sweet, because a lot of girls would bring their moms or friend or their grandmothers,” Madison said. “They came as groups to try on dresses.”

Madison set up two fitting rooms in an adjacent classroom and would send shoppers with armfuls of dresses to try on. As they learned to gauge the shoppers’ tastes, Madison and her team began making recommendations, often running over with their own armfuls of suggested dresses to be tried on.

“They would finally pick one and we’d say, ‘Is this the one? Are you saying yes to the dress?’ And they’d say, ‘yeah.'”

Amy Strand said it was fun to see her daughter enjoy the fruits of her labor.

“It became a lot more work than she expected,” Amy Strand said. “Not just as her principal, but as her mom, it was fun to sit back and watch. Having girls walk away feeling beautiful, and they were so grateful. The moms that accompanied their daughters were so grateful. Some moms asked how much the dresses cost and we’d say, ‘nothing, they are free.’

“I’m just so proud of her. It’s such a nice project that is so needed right now. Now more than ever, I think our teenagers need, post pandemic and post fire, our kids need their prom, they need their life events to feel like life is not so unpredictable all the time. That there are things to look forward to.”

Madison said seeing other girls so full of happiness made all the extra effort worthwhile.

“We gave away about 100 dresses,” Madison said. “They are theirs to keep. They’d ask and I’d tell them, ‘It’s yours forever.’ A lot of girls purposely chose dresses they can use again and again.”

Although she has put in far more hours than her senior project requires, Madison says she still plans to take those photos and build that website, hoping that girls around the state might be able to tap into the resource. She said she plans to open Becca’s Closet for one more weekend before this year’s prom season starts, but has yet to select a date.

For information about Becca’s Closest at King Kekaulike High School log on to: https://www.beccascloset.org/chapters/king-kekaulike-high-school-2/. Inquires also can be made by contacting Chapter Leader Kaylee DeCambra at kdecambra@kkhs.k12.hi.us.