The following article about The Cinderella Project appeared in the Saturday, February 22nd edition of the Burnaby News Leader.

Volunteers with the Cinderella Project gave her more than she asked for. She was given a beautiful grad gown with all the accessories, a makeover and a new hairstyle.
The girl also came to grad with something else she hadn’t had before: confidence and self-esteem.

“The Cinderella Project is about more than outfitting kids with gowns and suits,” says Pat Ponti, a teacher at Burnaby South who helps organize the project at Burnaby schools.

Graduation is something students hear about since they begin school. It becomes a future fixture in their lives and an important right of passage, says Ponti. Then, usually in their Grade 12 year, a parent will tell them the family can’t afford the graduation celebrations.

“These kids just quietly opt out of grad, make up excuses why they can’t attend,” he says. “There’s so much pride in confessing up that you’re poor.”

Started in 2000 by lawyers MacKenzie and her legal partner Cheryl Otto, the Cinderella Project gives impoverished students a chance to attend their graduation ceremony and celebrations by furnishing them with clothes and accessories, plus paying their expenses.

MacKenzie and Otto got the idea from two lawyers who had started something similar in Chicago. While the Lower Mainland Cinderella Project helped out almost 150 students last spring, the project in Chicago deals with thousands.

After being identified in the schools, students in the Lower Mainland are partnered with either a fairy godmother or godfather, who becomes their guide and tries to fulfill the wishes of the Cinderella or Cinderfella student.

MacKenzie’s Cinderella Project, now a recognized charity, has spawned similar projects in Victoria, Kamloops, Penticton, Campbell River, Nanaimo, Courtenay and Toronto.

A highlight of the project is boutique day, this year planned for April 13. A donated ballroom at the Renaissance Hotel in Vancouver is filled with hundreds of gowns and suits and tuxedos – some donated and some purchased – for the students. Rows of tables are stacked with purses, shoes, belts and other accessories. A professional photographer captures the moments in pictures, a DJ plays music and there’s lots of food.

Beauticians and hairstylists donate their time and students leave with goody bags in hand, full of gift certificates and donations. On Thursday, students at Burnaby South organized a fashion show, with proceeds going to the Cinderella Project boutique day.
Students leave the boutique day feeling like they’ve been part of a celebration and not recipients of charity, says MacKenzie.

Jessica Alvarez remembers her boutique day like it was yesterday. Both she and sister Erica graduated last year and were recipients of the program. The Alvarez family recently immigrated to Canada from Mexico and are making a fresh start. Last year, money was tight for the Alvarez girls because their father had been temporarily laid off from his sawmill job.

Jessica, a single mother, remembers walking into the ballroom and being shocked by the generosity of Canadians.

“It was so neat to see how total strangers were helping out,” said Jessica, 20, a Burnaby South grad. “I felt really special when I was being taken care of.”

Jessica and her sister probably would never have attended grad. “It would have been really tough for my parents because there was two of us graduating.”

Jessica’s life changed as a result. She now wants to continue her education and dreams of having a job where she can help others – something she hadn’t dreamed of before.

Ponti is dedicated to the project. Every year he searches out students that could benefit from it. If they don’t sign up to attend grad at Burnaby South, he wants to know why.

Of the 150 Cinderellas and Cinderfellas last year, 50 came from Burnaby and 23 were Burnaby South students. Those large numbers are the result of Ponti “really beating the bushes” and getting other teachers, counsellors and administrators to do the same.

If other school districts tried to find those needy students, they’d come up with similar numbers, he says.

“Before I got involved with the project, it never crossed my mind that these kids weren’t attending because they couldn’t afford it.”

But there’s more to it than one night of grad festivities and putting gowns and tuxedos on senior students, reminds Ponti. Kids living in poverty also live with low self-esteem. They tend to live up to their expectations. But by giving them their one night when they feel like a prince or a princess, and by showing them the world cares about them, it all changes, says Ponti a teacher for 23 years.

They experience grad as a culmination but it also becomes a liftoff pad for their lives. “They go from thinking ‘I can’t’ to ‘I can.’”

Last year, MacKenzie and Otto each took three months off work to organize the Cinderella Project. It was worth it. These students become etched in your heart, says MacKenzie.

She’s constantly finding out how the project benefits students. Like the one boy who lived a secret life.

He went through his school years unnoticed, with good grades. When he didn’t sign up for grad, a teacher asked why.

For years the Grade 12 student had been the sole caregiver for his mother, who had been dying from a debilitating disease. He spent his mornings, lunch hour and after school hours taking care of her needs. In the evening he would head off to work at two part-time jobs. The boy would arrive home after midnight, care for his mother and then do his homework.

“He was too busy caring for his mother to care for himself,” says MacKenzie. “Attending graduation wasn’t something he considered, not just because it’s expensive.”

The senior was referred to the Cinderella Project, attended boutique day and grad celebrations.

“What was so important to him about the experience was the moral support he got from the other men that were helping out,” says MacKenzie. “He came out of that with confidence and a belief there were things he could do that he hadn’t considered.”

The young man now attends college, after earning scholarships that are paying the way.

“That’s why we do it. Graduation is the end of a chapter and the beginning of the next,” she says. “The first chapter has been a difficult one for them. We want them to start the next in an uplifting way.”

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© Copyright 2003 Burnaby News Leader