Since the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, junior Isabel Machlin has been working with her advisery to establish her own service project. Called The White Dress Project, the goal is to collect gently used graduation dresses and resell them for under one hundred dollars to senior girls looking for a dress. The sale will take place on Saturday March 8th from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. in the EPI Center at the New Trier Winnetka Campus.

This project intends to benefit both New Trier girls and girls enrolled in inner city schools. Machlin said, “The money raised from the sale will be used to establish a scholarship fund to help send a young woman to college, preferably one from an inner city school. The project has many benefits because it helps raise scholarship money, recycles dresses, and provides a cost-effective opportunity for New Trier girls to purchase quality dresses at reasonable prices.” Some prospective graduates struggle to find dresses for the ceremony that are affordable. The program provides girls a great opportunity to find a reasonably priced dress while donating to a good cause.

There are many easy ways for current New Trier students, as well as former New Trier students to get involved. Machlin said, “Thanks to Tom Zengeler from Zengeler Cleaners, donating old dresses is super easy. All you have to do is drop off your dress at the Zengeler Cleaner’s Hubbard Woods Store located at 1010 Tower Road, and the dress will be complimentary cleaned and stored.” Students can also seek donations from older siblings or other New Trier graduates. This year’s graduating class is also encouraged to donate their graduation dresses for the 2015 sale.

Students can also get involved with similar projects, such as the Glass Slipper Project, which collects gently used prom dresses.

Machlin hopes to keep The White Dress Project continuing even after she graduates, saying, “My hope is that the sale will be successful enough to keep the project running from year to year, enough so that another advisory can take it on as sophomores and run it until they graduate, and so on.” To learn more about The White Dress Project, visit the website: http://www.whitedressproject.com