Stock at Red Deer event (Trenville R.P. Elks 248)

By Alessia Proietti

over 1,000 gowns

Province comes together to donate over 1,000 dresses for Gowns4Grads after trailer stolen

Feb 23, 2024 | 1:44 PM

While just one week ago organizers of the Gowns4Grads event were stripped of their entire stock, Albertans quickly came together to show that good can always prevail with generosity.

Run by the Elks of Alberta volunteer organization, the program provides free formal dresses and suits to teenagers for their graduations.

On February 12, just 10 days before their stop in Red Deer, Tammy Moyes, committee member of the Trenville 248 branch, announced that the trailer filled with over 500 gowns, 100 suits, 10 dress racks, mirrors, room dividers, shoes, and accessories, had been stolen from her parents’ front lawn.

READ: Trailer filled with dresses and suits for ‘Gowns4Grads’ program reported stolen

While there has been no update on the trailer, Moyes says the community needs to be highlighted for their support in donations, enabling the event to continue forward.

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“It’s been really amazing and overwhelming in a good way; really heartwarming,” she said.

Your Story Fitness, a local gym in Red Deer, opened her business to donations and received 250 gowns, while CBC Calgary was able to raise 665 gowns and 215 suits through a donation drive.

Members and volunteers sorting through dresses from the CBC donation drive. (Trenville R.P. Elks 248)

Moyes says she received donations from people in Lethbridge and others helped through volunteering.

“I would say all across Alberta people have reached out. We had a gal that wanted to mail us dresses because she knew she was too far away to get them to us. It really became an across-the-province thing,” she said.

In total, Moyes says they now have over 1,000 dresses alone, almost double what they had in their stolen trailer, outnumbering the amount of racks to display the dresses.

As a result, the event in Red Deer from February 20-22 was able to meet the demand for 68 gowns and 20 suits. While less than last year, potentially due to the uncertainty when the stock was stolen, Moyes says demand for suits has increased.

Moyes says the funds from the GoFundMe page, now at $1,285, will go towards replacing the trailer, which will help to store and transport the gowns more easily year-round. Currently, Red Deer’s Copper Cloud Events has offered to temporarily store the dresses.

Gowns4Grads will be in Linden from March 2-3 and in Stettler from March 27-28.

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