‘Dress Bank’ Helps Teens Make It To Prom

A Poulsbo police sergeant with her own memories of childhood poverty has started a “dress bank” for prom-bound high school girls who don’t have the money for a fancy gown.

Sgt. Brandy Duncan, the mother of two teen-age girls with distinctly different tastes, knows all about the expense of buying prom dresses and having little use for them after the dance.

“I know there are a lot of families that can’t afford even one dress,” Duncan told The Sun in Bremerton. “So I decided to take my daughters’ dresses and any others I could get and offer them to girls who would miss the prom if they didn’t get some help.”

She went to garage sales and asked folks to consider donating gowns to her dress bank if they didn’t sell. A story in The Sun brought more interest.

Duncan borrowed clothing racks from a Target store and offered the dresses to girls at North Kitsap High School last spring.

She remembers one girl in particular: a teen-age mother, living in foster care, with dark hair and a sweet smile - and no money.

The girl was looking at the dresses on a clothes rack in the school gym. She had picked a green gown, but it was snug.

“You could tell she’d just fallen in love with the green dress, but we couldn’t get it zipped all the way,” Duncan recalled.

One of Duncan’s friends, Betty Iverson, offered to alter the dress for the girl, and Duncan got her stockings and shoes to go with it.

“Going to this dance just meant everything to this girl,” Duncan said. “You should have seen her smile.”

Duncan has a total of 80 dresses to loan now and would like more. Hill Moving and Storage offered to store the dresses for her, and Fabricare Cleaners in Bremerton cleaned them.