Y
oung women attending Clemens High School have the opportunity to select a formal dress for prom, or any other special occasion, or keep free of charge thanks to two local women who believe that every young lady who is in need of a prom dress should have the opportunity to have one. Last year, Corporal (Cpl.) Hillory Halbardier, who is assigned to Clemens as a School Resource Officer from the Schertz Police Department, and Veronica Martinez, SCUCISD District Social Worker, reached out to school district employees and Schertz City employees requesting donations of gently used formal wear/accessories for their dress drive. “We ended last school year with 11 dresses and we now have approximately 50 dresses thanks to our school staff who are kind-hearted and incredibly generous to help us out with this project,” Halbardier said.
provided to her by the high school and making it easier for the girls to “shop.” Dresses are offered in a variety of styles/ sizes and are available for young women to look through and try on during school hours in several designated changing areas located within the school.
makeup salons who might donate their services at a low cost or ideally free of charge. Plans are also being made to speak to formal attire businesses for men to see if they would be willing to donate tuxedo rental vouchers for our male students in need of formal attire.
“Trying dresses on is half the experience. I am sure at some point we can expand and use our graphics design class to help us build a “dress catalog” to help the girls with their selection process,” Halbardier said.
The 2016 Clemens Prom will be held at the Alzafar Shrine on Saturday, May 7th from 7:00 PM- 11:00 PM. Young women are welcome to “shop” for a prom dress now through May 6. People interested in donating a dress or accessories can either drop them off at Clemens, the Schertz Police Department or arrange for the dress to be picked up. For more information, contact Ms. Martinez at vmartinez@scuc.txed.net or 210-9456523 or Cpl. Halbardier at hhalbardier@schertz.com or 210-382-0359.
She and Martinez have big plans for the future and look forward to expanding the “prom dress drive” to be able to also provide accessories such as shoes, jewelry and purses. They hope to work with local dry cleaners to have the dresses cleaned, as well as hair and
“It is called a ‘prom dress drive,’ but really the dresses are available for any social event. We would love to concentrate on providing dresses for school district sponsored events, but if a girl needs a dress for say the military ball we would be willing to help her out as well. Each situation will be evaluated on a case by case basis,” she explained. “We are thankful that our school district has a lot of resources in place and people who support us. Now it’s a matter of getting organized and getting the word out. We don’t want any kids to be left out from going to prom because they don’t have a dress or shoes. We want to help them in any way that we can,” said Martinez. Currently, all the dresses are being stored on hangers and hung in a storage closet located in Cpl. Halbardier’s office
Kailey Drake, left, and Alexia Pahl look at some of the prom dresses. schertzmagazine.com
APRIL 2016
31