We are already collecting prom gowns, shoes and jewelry for our 2010 CIAO BELLA Prom Dress Give Away event!
Please follow the directions on our DONATIONS page to make a donation and thank you! We are planning a Ciao Bella Prom Dress Giveaway event in the DC Metro Area this year!
Would you like to host an event in your own county or district?
Contact Marie Gorny, Ciao Bella Director, via e-mail at ciaobellaprom@gmail.com
Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766 - 1853) is CIAO BELLA's heavenly prom patron. Pierre is the Catholic Patron of Good Works for the U.S. He was born into slavery in Haiti but lived most of his life in New York City in the 1800s becoming a famous and wealthy hairdresser. He was freed by the terms of his master's will; nevertheless Pierre compassionately continued to support his master's impoverished widow. Pierre married a lovely young woman whose freedom he purchased when she was still quite young. Together they were devoted to God and opened their hearts, their purses and even their own home to people they met who were suffering. Pope John Paul II declared him "Venerable", the 2nd step toward becoming a cannonized saint in the Catholic Church.
MARYLAND CIAO BELLA 2009
CIAO BELLA PROM 2009, on Sunday April 19th at the Hilton in Silver Spring Maryland, was greatly enjoyed by all who came, students, moms and volunteers. More on this below.
AFTER GIVEAWAY GIVEAWAY! After our giveawy, we gave away a number of gowns to several local and one not-so-local charities to distribute even more of our gowns to high school students, includng Catholic Charities in Roanoke Va, and the Montgomery County Foster Care Program's Cinderella Room Project.
AFTER-GIVEAWAY SALE: Several successful after-giveaway sales of our prom gowns were held at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church 5820 Riverdale Road Riverdale, MD 20737. One of our Assistant Director's, Hilary Essex, sold gowns at $10 (student rate) to $25 per gown. Christen Caines, another Asst. Director, sold jewelry at under-market cost . Thank you to St. John's Pastor and congregation.
The students who attended our giveaway at the HIlton had a wonderful time. Christina Coates of Northwest High School emailed us: "This was the best event ever! Thank you so much." Many girls, delighted with gown, jewelry and accessories, admitted to feeling like princesses.
Jane Deschak, our volunteer florist and her daughter
The many beautiful BILL LEVKOFF gowns donated by Wedding Plaza Gown (EBAY handle: wpgown) were the hit of the day. The many gowns donated through the Theta Omega Omega/Silver Spring, MD Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority were also beautiful as were the fashionable gowns donated by students from Good Counsel, Holy Cross, Seton High School, Holy Child and Stone Ridge and from parishioners at St. Raphaels Church along with the ladies from the IRS and other kind donors.
This year's CIAO BELLA Co-Directors were, in alphabetical order, Jane Beston, Christen Caines, Erin Maya Cullen, Nsombi Davis, Hilary Essex, Desiree Hughes and Susan Jamison. Thank you to each of these ladies for their hard work. Additionally, we are happy to announce that CIAO BELLA is being supported with both donations and volunteers from this Silver Spring group: Theta Omega Omega/Silver Spring, MD Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, see their website at www.aka-too.org
Thank you to the Hilton for donating a ballroom for our event. The Hilton is located at 8727 Colesville Road. Silver Spring, MD 20910.
Several notable highlights. Angie Ang of WKYS did live broadcasting from the event and made the event even more fun. We had a volunteer florist, Jane Deschak, who showed the students how to make a boutenaiire for their date and provided each interested student with a take-home kit to make their own boutenaiire. We had a volunteer make-up artist, Michela Wariebi, who demonstrated her skills on many delighted students. Christen Caines assembled jewelry fit for prom goers for several months before the event and laid these beautiful pieces out over three large tables for the students to peruse and that was certainly a highlight. Our prayer station was beautifully set up by Erin Maya Cullen and run by Terri Schott. We had a great free raffle where we gave away several digital picture frames, a cell phone with minutes, dance lessons (donated by DANCE CONNECTIONS), and a variety of other prizes; this was run by Ann Willard and Desi Hughes. Caitlin Robinson and her sister Shannon Beston gave out beautiful flower clips for prom updos which were made by Caitlin. Jane Beston organized the set up and tear down of the event and also helped it run smoothly while volunteers from the Theta Omega/Omega Sorority, and several others from the Bridal Center, the UMD and elsewhere helped our students find that special gown. Nsombi Davis also helped take photos for us. Valerie Ware donated lunch for the volunteers and set that up in a buffet style which the volunteers appreciated quite a lot! We had a couple of husbands and sons and friends of sons pitch in with the set up and tear down too: thank you to husbands John Beston and Bruce Ware, and son John Jamison and his friend James Montone. Lee and Bonnie Shields helped Hilary in many many ways to prepare for the after-giveaway sale.
Finally, a reporter from the Washington Post came and did a lovely story on our event which was featured on the front page of the Metro Section of the Washington Post. Click here to see that story.
DROP OFF BOXES: Thank you to BROOKSTONES in Montgomery Mall and in Lakeforest Mall, MWTUX in Lakeforest Mall and the Greenbelt CURVES for hosting drop off boxes for gown donations.
What was our best advice for prom goers? Choose a beautiful and modest dress and plan out a good time you will want to remember and tell your future husband and kids about. See out STILL SINGLE webpage (if you are over 18). Avoid alcohol and drugs and go wiith a date or in a group you can trust. You must be the first one in your life to take good care of you! You may be the only person around who is watching out for your future so please do a good job.
A $50 gift certificate to Macys will be awarded to the senior prom faculty advisor from Charles H. Flowers High School in PG County, the only school to have at least 7 students who registered and actually attended the event this year.
A special THANK YOU!!!!!!! to ZIPS CLEANERS of LAUREL MD who cleaned some of our prom gowns for free.
CIAO BELLA PROM 2008
Everyone seems to agree that our CIAO BELLA Prom 2008 on May 4, 2008 at the Hilton Silver Spring was a great success! High School girls from 27 high schools from the Maryland-District of Columbia metro area particpated in the event. THANKS TO THE HILTON SILVER SPRING FOR DONATING THE USE OF A BALLROOM TO THIS EVENT! Boxes of leftover gowns were delivered to three D.C. public high schools.
This picture shows one of our participants, Ornella Bellamy from Blair High School in Silver Spring, at her prom. Ornella kindly sent us this picture and told us how much she enjoyed wearing the dress.
Mrs. Andrea Butler, wife of Washington Wizards basketball star Caron Butler, greeted the girls at the Hilton and made everyone's day with her soft demeanor. She is pictured here below (center with green print blouse) with girls from Northwestern High School's Boys and Girls Club and their leader Ms. Milly Terry.
Angie Ang of WKYS 93.3 came and did some live broadcasting of the event and added to the fun. Angie and Quicksilver had promoted the event for several weeks on WKYS. Thank you Angie and Quicksilver!
The Hilton Silver Spring's ballroom was beautiful and staff were great.
Thanks to donations from many, many different people, we had hundreds of gowns, and several hundred pairs of shoes and pieces of jewelry to give away.
We are delighted to say that everyone seemed delighted with quality and volume of choice.
Our goal was to offer a free and beautiful prom dress to many area high school seniors from Montgomery County, Prince Georges County and the District of Columbia on tight budgets. We did, with a lot of help. Here is student Mankah Angwafo displaying the gown she chose.
Our many, many volunteers were absolutely wonderful and we are so grateful for their help. We make special mention of Our 3 person "Dream Team" managing this event and we mention a few of the many things these 3 ladies did:
Helen Robinson, who came up with the initial prom gown giveaway idea, helped shoulder it to fruition, contacted Mrs. Butler and WKYS, and guided both volunteers and students throughout the event,
Erin Maya Cullen, our youth leader who collected over 60 gowns and other donations for us, brought us volunteers, helped with the set up and clean up, addressed the girls with an inspiring and uplifiting message and had a very special prayer station at CIAO BELLA, and
Christen Caines who personally and single-handedly collected the jewelry.
Our prayer station was a wonderful opportunity for our high school seniors to give us a special intention for prayer help. Erin prayed hard over each intention and then sent them off to cloistered nuns living in Maryland for additional prayers. Here is the letter recieved back from the sisters which praises the faith of the young ladies who asked for the prayers!
We would also like to thank Valerie Ware who generously purchased pizza and sodas for our volunteers and served them in her hotel room suite throughout the day and also helped us transport gowns to the event.
We thank Helen's daughter Desiree Robinson and her brother David who were always helpful and cheerful, David's aunt Kathy who also pitched in tirelessly.
We thank Erin's sister Holly Beradi who helped collect many gowns before the event, helped set up and clean up, and took the pics among many other things at the event, and Erin's daughter Martina who helped too,
We thank some other key members of our volunteer team that day: Jane Beston who helped keep things organized the day before the event and. with her friend Ann Willard, managed to keep things running smoothly for many of the girls seeking just the right gown, Vicki Nassir who helped the girls search through the dresses, Laura Jamison who wrapped gowns in plastic for transport home and John Jamison and Rodolfo Gaona who loaded the leftover gowns, racks and shoes onto John's truck and transported them out of the Hilton.
We wish we could mention everyone. They deserve it! Donors are mentioned below.
MORE THANK YOUs!
We thank the HILTON SILVER SPRING which generously donated the use of its ballroom for this event and we hope people consider the Hilton Silver Spring when choosing the right venue for their prom, wedding or other special event.
Thank you to Brookstones, MW Tux and Dollar Ocean in Lakeforest Mall, Brookstones in Montgomery Mall, and PG Plaza, for allowng us to place drop boxes. Please note that those boxes are no longer available for drop off.
Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Coran Butler for donating gowns to our event.
Thank you to Sheila Brinkley of Heart to Heart who collected 65 gowns from people she knew and cleaned them and donated them.
Thank you to Claires, for donating 20 pieces of prom jewelry and coupons to our event.
Thank you to Zip Cleaners of Laurel dry cleaned 20 gowns for this event at no charge.
and thank you to all of our wonderful dress donors. Without you, this would not be possible.