2009 Ball Gown Give-Away

This past Saturday, a friend and I decided to venture into the crazy world of free gowns. We arrived at about 8 am and got in line. About an hour later, we were given our numbers:

That means 526 women had already signed up for the giveaway by the time we reached the front of the line, at about 9 am!! Apparently, some women camp over night and others arrive at 3 am.. let me tell you, I don't think free is worth that!!
This is the group of women waiting to be let into the room with all the dresses. They let groups of about 50 women enter at one time for only 20 minutes!! When our number was finally called, it was about 12 noon. (We didn't sit around the whole time to wait.)

Once inside, we QUICKLY rummaged through the racks of size 3-4 and picked out as many as we could. Then onto the big room they called a 'fitting room'. We hurried in and out of each dress and then we picked our 2 favorites!

In the end, we were successful. I would consider arriving a bit earlier next year just to get a smaller number, but I almost think that getting in earlier would be harder! There would be even more dresses to pick through in such a short period of time!

I would really like to thank the YMCA on Camp Pendleton for putting this on this year, and all the dress donors. There were over 1800 dresses to choose from!!! So, if you have any old prom, homecoming or ball dresses you can give to a good cause, please consider donating for next year's Ball Gown Give-Away!!