- November 5, 2024
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Before the clock could strike midnight on her career at Lakewood Ranch High School, Myakka City's Kimberley Barr wanted to see the Cinderella Project work once again.
That moment came at her prom night when she saw the impact she had through her Girl Scout Gold Award project.
Barr worked with Pamela Peters, the membership supervisor at CORE SRQ, to start Project Prom Dress, which was Barr’s way of bringing back the Cinderella Project.
The Cinderella Project, which hadn’t been held since 2014, was an event in which high school girls could get free prom dresses, shoes, jewelry and purses that were donated.
Barr led her Girl Scout troop and volunteers to collect more than 400 dresses of various colors, sizes and styles along with dozens of pieces of jewelry, purses and shoes.
I liked the concept because as a senior myself, I understood the prom is expensive,” Barr said. “I personally knew people who were worried about going to prom due to the expense. I knew that for them, for my community, and for girls my age, I owed it to them to bring (the Cinderella Project) back.”
She called it Project Prom Dress and worked from October to March to make the event a reality, which led to her earning the Girl Scout Gold Award.
The Gold Award is the highest achievement for a Girl Scout. The project requires 80 hours and must make an impact on the community. Barr received her Gold Award at the Young Women of Distinction Awards Ceremony May 15 at the Charlotte Harbor Event and Conference Center in Punta Gorda.
Although Barr had volunteered for several community-minded events in the past, she was never the leader, making her project all the more satisfying for her.
“Before this project, I didn’t have very strong leadership skills,” she said. “I’d always kind of been a follower, so I needed to dig down into that inner leader inside of me and make sure I was communicating with my team, I was being flexible and making sure everything was organized. That was a big step for me, but I knew I had to do it.”
Barr and Peters used CORE SRQ as a headquarters where people could drop off any donations. Then Barr and Peters would sort through everything to make sure all items were OK to use for the project before packing them into storage until the distribution event March 17-18.
Barr said her organization skills were key to the success, and at times, it was challenging. For example, it was hard to sort pairs of shoes into sizes when the shoes didn’t say what size they were, so she had to buy a measuring tool to figure it out.
When it came to advertising Project Prom Dress, Barr wasn’t expecting much of a response. She created flyers and posted them to her social media. She was surprised to see the support it generated.
“I posted it on my Instagram, and then suddenly, all the stories on my social media were all of my flyer and everyone was reposting it,” Barr said. “I thought I was dreaming. It felt awesome and made me so excited for my event.”
About 100 girls came to the two-day event to pick out their prom attire.
“It was kind of emotional,” Barr said. “It was a real moment, especially with girls I know at my school who were there. I had been working on this event pretty much almost my entire senior year and to actually see it happen and knowing I somehow made an impact was surreal. It was incredible.”
Barr had fun seeing the different colors and styles of dresses the girls picked.
“There were definitely some oldies but goodies,” Barr said. “A lot of the oldies were picked. I think one thing with today is there’s a lot of different fashion senses.One girl would go with this pink, puffy, sparkly dress and the next one was a cocktail dress with stripes on it. It showed how girls are different in their own unique ways.”
Although the project was stressful, Barr said she’s proud of the work and hopes the project will continue in the future.
“It was the perfect way to end my Girl Scout journey,” she said. “Girl Scouts had been a huge part of my life. It helped me build my confidence, courage and character.”
