Complete Package.

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Everyone knows that the Charleston Cinderella Project is the place to go for all of your prom needs – – – from the dress to the shoes to the accessories like jewelry and a purse, we have it all.

Then sometimes, we are able to go the extra mile and even add in some awesome door prizes.  This year we have Jennifer Ivey (a local rockstar attorney who is volunteering for the first time with us) helping secure these door prizes.

We’re pleased to announce Burtons Grill & Bar donated a $50.00 gift certificate for us to give away! What an awesome way to make prom extra special.

We also received word that Tresses Hair Salon  donated a $35.00 gift certificate to give out as a door prize. We all know prom can become quite costly when you add in hair, makeup, and flowers… this is just another way we can help offset that cost for one of our Cinderellas.

And does anyone out there love frostys as much as I do? Well, Wendy’s in Mount Pleasant hooked us up with $100 in gift certificates (10 $10 certificates) to randomly give out to our “shoppers”.  One frosty… two straws?  I’m sold.

There’s really no limit on what we can give away, so any connections to hair salons, nail salons, make up artists, and flower shops – please send them our way if they might donate to this incredible project.

xo

 

 

The Planning Continues…

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The planning for the 2017 Cinderella Project continues as we are less than 2 months out from our big event.

Last week, committee member Carrie picked up 105 dresses (yes, you read that correctly – 105 dresses) from Gown Boutique of Charleston – a long time supporter of our event. No matter what your style or favorite color, we’re sure to have something for you. From lace to sequence, knee-length to floor-length, and toole galore – our Cinderella Boutique will have it all.

We’ve also confirmed our DJ – thanks to Bunn DJ Event Company. We added a DJ about two years ago after trying to use CDs (yea, we date back to CDs…) and iphone playlists for several years. Juan, our DJ for the last two years, has been incredible and really added something extra to our big day. We’re so grateful to have this donated service.

And for all of our volunteers out there – The Charleston Cotton Exchange has once again agreed to donate our volunteer tee shirts. Having these for our volunteers is so important. It helps distinguish who is there to “shop” and who is there to help. We’ve shown them off in the past, but here’s another look at how awesome our volunteers look.

Volunteers 2014

1780725_10100739925610154_282307242_n

 

Volunteers 2015

vol-2015

 

Seriously, what a rockstar group of fairy godmothers?

 

More updates coming soon!

2017 Here We Come!

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The annual Cinderella Project used to take months and months to plan. But, seeing that this is the 17th year for the event (we date back to 2001!) and our 14th year volunteering for the event, we like to think it’s a well-oiled machine.

We are now able to knock out the planning of this incredible event in just two short months. So, 2017, here we come!

This year’s event will be held on the second Saturday in March — March 11, 2017. Go ahead, mark your calendar now. We’ll be hosting again at John Wesley United Methodist Church. This location is perfect: large auditorium which transforms into the boutique, lots of free parking, and the most wonderful church staff (hey, Stephanie and Mr. Green!) that helps make this run seamlessly.

We have some thank yous to dole out:

First, thank you to Danielle at Ross Printing for helping edit and print our posters. We have one soliciting donations and another inviting the young ladies to the event. Please share with any and everyone you think wants to be involved (donations, volunteers, attend). Here they are:

invitation
dresses-needed-2017

 

 

Additional thank you’s to two of our annual donors: Bella Bridesmaid and Bridals by Jodi.

How lucky are we that such wonderful local businesses support this event?

bbj

 

A final thank you goes out to Rachel McKenna, owner of The Trunk Show, for her annual monetary contribution to our event. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, we encourage everyone to support local businesses that support local nonprofits.

trunk

 

Stay tuned for additional details about the 2017 Cinderella Project.

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook! A simply “share” can go a long way in increasing awareness of our event resulting in additional donations, volunteers, and young ladies attending!

♥

 

Cinderella Project Update

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For those following along on the planning of the 2016 event, here’s a brief update . . .

A couple weeks back, we picked up from Bridals By Jodi and The Trunk Show – two of our annual donors. The dresses and shoes barely fit in the SUV!

Last week we picked up from the Zetas at the College of Charleston. Seriously, this group of young ladies is incredible. They’ve been supporting our project for years now. Not only did they donate dresses, shoes, and jewelry, but they collected over $100 in donations to our project.

This evening, we picked up from Cosign Charleston. Here’s just a sampling of the dozens of dresses.

Consign

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but we will have all kinds of dresses – long, short, beaded, sequence, satin, lace, silk . . . you name it, we’ll have it!

 

We also picked up our volunteer tee shirts from The Cotton Exchange. They’ve been generous to donate our volunteer tee shirts for the past several years. Check them out if you need any personalized merchandise. Here’s a photo of what the tee shirts look like (we reuse the same design every year to repeat volunteers can re-wear their shirts!)

 

Tee Shirts

The back of the shirt has “VOLUNTEER” written across the shoulders. This is a great way for everyone to know who’s “working” the event vs. who’s there shopping!

So we set up John Wesley United Methodist Church tomorrow, Friday, March 11 and transform the auditorium into the Cinderella “boutique”!

Here is a photo of what the auditorium looks like . . .

Before

I’ll post an “After” shot tomorrow, but here’s what we were able to do last year . . .

 

After

 

Can’t wait to see how it looks tomorrow!

So You Have Something To Donate?

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The 2016 Charleston Cinderella Project planning is well underway. What do we need from you? Here’s a few ideas:

  • Dresses (new or gently worn)
  • Shoes
  • Shawls
  • Purses
  • Jewelry

What if you own a business? Can it help a young lady headed to prom? How about a gift certificate to a restaurant, nail salon, hair salon?

Deadline:March 10, 2016

Now, where can you donate these items?

Daniel Island:
Paisley
194 Seven Farms Drive, #600
Daniel Island, SC 29492

Downtown:
St. Matthews Lutheran Church
​Outreach Center
403 King St., Charleston, SC 29401

James Island:
Martin Luther Lutheran Church
1605 Harbor View Road
Charleston, SC 29412

Mount Pleasant:
St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
604 Pitt St., Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464

North Charleston:
Shelley Leeke Law Firm, LLC
3614 Ashley Phosphate Road
North Charleston, SC 29418

Rehabilitation Centers of Charleston
2070 Northbrook Blvd., Suite A-9
North Charleston, SC 29406

Summerville:
Rehabilitation Centers of Charleston
330 East 5th North St.
Summerville, SC 29483​​

West Ashley:
John Wesley United Methodist Church
626 Savannah Highway
Charleston, SC 29407​

Law Office of Taylor E. Long, LLC
4 Carriage Lane, Suite 400-C
Charleston, SC 29407

Dresses Needed 2016

2016 Event Planing Has Begun!

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Whew. A lot happened in 2015. Some committee members had babies.. others got engaged. It was quite the year! As a whole, there was some concern that we would not be able to dedicate the necessary time and effort to make a 2016 Cinderella Project happen. But, fear not because there is an incredible committee of women who are passionate about this project and are determined that 2016 will be our best year yet!

 

So what have we done thus far? Well, yes… we started a bit later in the planning, but because this event has been going on for FIFTEEN years (woah) at this point, luckily a lot of the planning is just getting in touch with the right people.

 

Important stuff – when will the 2016 project happen? MARCH 12, 2016, 10 am – 2 pm. Mark it down.

And, where will it be? John Wesley United Methodist Church has graciously agreed to host our event again this year. We’ve held it there the past two years after our initial location downtown at St. Matthews Lutheran Church was unavailable due to renovations. It’s a great spot on Savannah Highway. Big auditorium and lots of parking.

 

As you know, we always have posters for our event. One to advertise to donors and one to invite the young ladies to the “boutique”. Danielle Matheny at Ross Printing helped edit our posters and hooked us up with printed ones! Remember, we always say that you should support local businesses that support local charities. Here are our 2016 posters:

 

 

So we have the When and the Where … and the posters are ready to go. Now, what about dresses? Well, this afternoon we made our first pick up of the season! Allison Cobb Long, owner of Bella Bridesmaid in Charleston is an annual sponsor because of her continued support. Committee chairs Alissa and Taylor picked up nearly 100 dress this afternoon. Here’s Taylor transporting them to her car:

 

Taylor

 (She’s got that engaged/wedding bliss glow – hence why she was the model and not the sleep-deprived new mama, Alissa).

 

Now, you’re probably asking – where do you keep these dresses until the event? This crazy committee used to keep them in their respective houses. But, it ended up looking like we belonged on that TV show “Hoarders” so a few years back we reached out to AAA Storage downtown and they’ve donated a unit to us for Jan-March. Huge help.

 

We’ve been getting lots of e-mails about donations and volunteering so it looks like we are off to a great start. We will be sure to update on here more often.

Don’t forget to LIKE us on Facebook, FOLLOW us on Twitter & Instagram: ChsCinderella

Final Countdown

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Let’s see – we are 5 days away from THE day!

For those who didn’t see the status update on Fbook: We just received a call from Blue Mercury that they have a bunch of eye shadow donations for us! Goodie bag stuffings galore!

And, Ms. McKenna from The Trunk Show called us up to let us know that in addition to her monetary donation and the fourteen dresses she’s already donated – she has another set of dresses! Here is a photo of two of those dresses:

TSD

Hello prom!

We then received great news from another local salon — Salon Capelli (Mt. Pleasant) has donated a gift certificate for makeup and up-do which includes wash & blow dry! Woo hoo. We have some lucky, lucky ladies this year.

We followed up on two of our major donors: (1) Snyder Event Rentals confirmed the tent (a/k/a dressing rooms) donation and confirmed the new location for our event; (2) Charleston Cotton Exchange confirmed donation of tee shirts for our wonderful volunteers!

Vols

 Here’s a photo of some of our volunteers at last year’s event sporting our CP tee shirts donated by Charleston Cotton Exchange

Last week I swung by the CofC Zeta Tau Alpha House on Coming Street to pick up an entire trunk full of donated goodies. Special thanks to Courtney Walker for serving as our liaison. You have a great group of young women and we appreciate your annual support of our project.

But the great news doesn’t end there . . .

Ashley R has been volunteering with CP for the last couple of years. Take a look at what she got Copper Penny to donate for this year’s event:

CPHow incredible is that?!

Yesterday, I chatted with Alden de Hart, who has  worked with Teen Vogue as an It Girl and Haute Spot stylist where she worked with prom styling. She’s offered to help set up a Style Lounge where she can give out tips and tricks to the attendees! Looking forward to having her join us!

ADH

And today, I was in touch with Andrea S. Clements, MS, PHR (Employee Relations Representative from Roper St. Francis Healthcare). RSF has been a very big supporter of the Charleston Cinderella Project for years. Their employees never cease to amaze me in their annual contributions. Ms. Clements told me she dropped off between 50-60 dresses they have been collecting at RSF! Love it! Thanks to Andrea and the rest of the RSF employees for your support. Looking forward to working with some of you on Saturday at the boutique!

So, what’s left?

Well – first thing – we’ve been trying to hit our 500 “like” on Facebook. We were at 454 as of 2/18. We hit 461 on 2/22. Made it to 478 on 2/25. Saw 483 on 3/1. And now, we are sitting right at 492! EIGHT MORE LIKES of our page and we hit 500! While this may seem trivial, it’s actually pretty big. See, many of our donations and volunteers come from social media sharing or even liking a status. So if you haven’t already, please go “like” our page on Facebook.

Also, for those still wanting to volunteer – right now we are full on the actual shop day, except for the 1-4 pm slot. And the committee can always use a hand with break down!

Here’s the schedule for the rest of the week:

(1) Seeing if I can get on the Rocky D Show for some last minute PR;

(2) A little birdie told me some Avon samples are being dropped off tomorrow – added goodie bag swag!;

(3) Two awesome committee members: Marie and Carrie will be picking up from all of our donation locations on Friday afternoon. That means all donations must be completed by Thursday, COB!

(4) We set up at John Wesley starting at 2 pm on Friday;

(5) Ashley, another awesome committee member, is going to help us move from dress racks from dtown to John Wesley;

(6) We will have car load of donations being brought from our storage unit donated by AAA Storage dtown on Line Street;

(7) Saturday morning, we will have a volunteer pick up delicious cupcakes from CUPCAKE;

(8) Last minute set up and volunteer orientation will occur for the first shift.

(9) THE Cinderella Carriage will arrive Saturday morning and serve as gorgeous decor for the event.

DOORS OPEN AT 10 am!

Ladies – do you not need to bring anything with you to “shop”. This event is meant for high school students wanting to attend prom but may not be able to afford it. If you fit in that description – we hope you come!

We will keep tags on any of the new dresses. This is just to show you that the dress is new. It is still free, no matter the number on the price tag.

Parking is available. If you are taking CARTA: click here for route information. We are in between stops 4 and 5. If you need a free bus pass, e-mail us immediately: cinderellaprojectcharleston@gmail.com

Til’ next time! xo