For the second year in a row, hundreds of young high school girls will have the incredible opportunity to attend a special prom dress giveaway courtesy of Lesley West, the wife of Warriors basketball player, David West.
In a partnership with the Oakland Public Education Fund, West is donating 1,000 prom dresses to Bay Area students in an initiative dubbed “Dressed by West.”
The dresses are free and registration is available to any Bay Area junior or senior high school students. Interested students must register by 3 p.m. on March 15th before they can shop for their dream gown on March 18th at the Rakuten Performance Center — the Warriors main practice stadium.
“Dressed by West” has taken place in Oakland for the past two years, but the organization has also held similar events in other cities, including New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
“Nobody could afford anything,” said West of the natural disaster aftermath. “There were $200 to $300 [dresses] on a 90 percent off rack. I ended up buying 800 dresses from Dillards for $12 a piece.”
West said Hurricane Katrina served as a form of inspiration for the project and decided to give young students an opportunity to have a stellar prom dress.
“With all sort of fees for college applications senior year, to have prom expenses on top of that can be very hard on parents,” said Oakland Public Education Fund spokeswoman, Mia Murietta in a report by the Mercury News. “Of course, parents don’t want to see their students miss out or feel like they can’t participate because of that, so people have been very grateful for the event.”
