With the increasing number of formal events for eighth graders and the growing price and extravagance of the dresses that girls wear, it can get overwhelming for a family to buy the perfect outfits to make their daughters feel special. That is why Kim Bass, a junior at Monmouth Regional High School, started the non-profit organization Bella of the Ball.
Kim’s charity gives eighth grade girls in need the dresses of their dreams at no cost.
Its mission is similar to other nonprofits that collect new and gently used prom dresses for high school students who otherwise would not be able to afford to attend the prom.
Bella of the Ball’s inaugural event took place on Saturday, May 23, from which approximately 100 eighth grade girls each left with a beautiful dress to wear to a graduation, a dance or another formal event. The event, as Kim’s mother Cindy Bass described it, was a “huge success.”
“It was really nice to see the girls rummaging through all the gorgeous dresses,” she said. “We even had dressing rooms set up and chairs for parents to wait in while their daughters tried on dresses.”
To make this event possible, Kim put up fliers in churches
and in downtown Red Bank, emailed 12 school districts
throughout Monmouth County, and got permission from her
guidance counselor to leave school to talk to middle schools about her charity. Through this constant effort to publicize the need for dresses for the event, word spread quickly.
She soon collected over 300 dresses that came from the immense generosity her community showed. “Everybody donated,” Cindy said. “Teachers from Kim’s school who had daughters, girls from her school, girls from other schools and people we didn’t know all donated. We would come home and more dresses would be in a box outside our doorstep.”
To make this event happen, Kim had to not only collect the dresses, but also advertise and secure a location to hold the event.
Kim wanted to hold the event at a venue as elegant as the dresses, so she “canned” – collected monetary donations in a can – outside A.C. Moore craft store in Shrewsbury to raise money to pay for a banquet room at Branches, a restaurant in West Long Branch. She raised $250 to rent the room as she “wanted the girls to feel special” when buying their special dresses.
Kim plans to hold another “Bella of the Ball” event next year during her senior year of high school, and perhaps expand to also making accessories and shoes available to the eighth grade girls. She is currently involving three underclassmen in the planning of the next event so that it can be even bigger. “Hopefully when I leave high school, they’ll continue the event and make it into a lasting tradition,” Kim said.
– By Heather Nelson
