Every spring, thousands of students across the country celebrate a rite of passage: Prom. According to the magazine "Your Prom", the average prom goer spends $638, and low-income students and schools seem to be keeping the pace. This is the conundrum faced by many students from Noel D’Allacco's former school district in Yonkers, NY, where upwards of 66% qualify for the free-lunch program. D’Allacco founded Operation PROM in 2005, now a recognized Not-for-Profit Charitable Organization. Operation PROM was originally established to help low-income students attend their proms by providing free prom dresses and tuxedo rentals. It has since expanded to also help students with regular donations of food, clothing and school supplies as well. She primarily assists students who are homeless or live in shelters and do not have family to assist them. |
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| Press Release - Spring/Summer 2009 |
| 501 c 3 Not-for-Profit Organization |
D'Allacco runs Operation PROM while also working as a college admissions counselor, and
adjunct professor at the College of Westchester in White Plains.
To date, Operation PROM has helped hundreds of students attend their prom at little or no
cost. In addition to providing free prom dresses and tuxedo rentals, D’Allacco has started a
Leadership Scholarship Fund. One scholarship will go to a student who has shown
exceptional leadership capabilities, and academic excellence, despite financial hardship.
The recipient is selected by Operation PROM’s leadership committee.
To request a free prom dress or tuxedo, students must be recommended by their guidance
counselor and meet the requirements such as a severe financial need, and the student should
be passing all of their classes. Dozen’s of people contact D’Allacco to donate dresses, but
she receives hundreds of requests from students who need the dresses and sadly, sometimes
cannot fulfill every request.
In March 2008, D’Allacco was contacted by Jeanette LeBlanc, a student at Maria Regina
High School in Hartsdale. She heard about Operation PROM and started a dress drive at
her high school. In less than two weeks she had collected more than 60 dresses. Thanks to
students like her and her classmates, Operation PROM was able to distribute the dresses in
Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Peekskill, and Pleasantville.
While D’Allacco had worked out tuxedo rentals at a reduced cost, students still have to pay
a fee, so financial donations help her to assist young men in need with offsetting this cost.
After the Prom season is over, Operation PROM will still accept donations. However, it
will start a back to school supplies drive in July, collecting new notebooks, pencils, crayons
and other items to help students whose families cannot afford to purchase what their school
has required for the school year.
“Of course our goal is to increase the number of donations for the coming year, but I also
want to spend more one-on-one time with students to advocate furthering their education by
helping seniors with the college planning process,” said D’Allacco. “I also hope that students
who may not need my services can contribute by running dress drives and fundraisers in
their schools.”
For immediate release - contact: Noel D'Allacco (914) 672-3070
| Founder, Noel D'Allacco Bloomingdale's Dress Drive March 2009 |
| Operation PROM in the news: The New York Times NY Times.com CBS 2 News The Journal News |