Helping Hands is a student run business that allows students to learn effective communications skills and teamwork.

The students learn these skills through projects they take part in, such as their recently opened coffee bar and bakery. The class is taking on yet another project, Project Prom to Remember.

“Project Prom to Remember is a community service project that Helping Hands Class is going to be sponsoring this year,” head of Helping Hands Michelle Thacker said. “Their motto or their mission statement is ‘making prom possible,’ and the idea behind this service project is to collect as many formal dresses, accessories, shoes, men’s slacks, ties, jackets and vest as we can, and offer those at no cost to any student that would like to make a selection.”

The group has been putting out information for the community on Hays Post, Next-Tec Classified and Eagle Community Connections in hopes of getting more people involved and to potentially get some donations for their project Thacker said.

“We actually have had several people contact us, but we haven’t got the donations yet,”, Thacker said. “I’ve had numerous emails and some phone calls, so I know they’re on the way, but I haven’t received any yet. We do have racks already purchased so we are ready to take donations.”

They group is open to nearly all donations, and there are few requirements. They request that all donations are smoke free, cleaned (no stains) and that all jewels or beading is intact.

“It doesn’t matter [the type of formal wear]. We know style changes. We are also looking for vintage type clothing because some students like to be different, and they like to have an opportunity to find something different,” Thacker said. “I figure that if we have a large enough selection, people can have something in mind and hopefully we will have something that suites their needs.”

Before prom, Helping Hands plans on having a few days to allow students to look through and select some of the donated pieces.

“We will have a prom store open in February, and it will be at Hays High School,” Thacker said. “I don’t know yet where we’ll be at Hays High, we’re still working that out, but we will have a prom store here. We’d like to have that opportunity open at least a couple of times before prom.”

After, students who did take some of the clothing are not expected to return it, but they are encouraged to donate it back to the project.

“They [the students] can decide what to do. However, we are going to encourage, part of our statement that we’re going to put out on our clothing an on our tags, that the students pay it forward,” Thacker said. “We are going to be encouraging our participants to give back because giving back is always in style, that’s kind of our motto. Pay it forward, re-donate to Project Prom to Remember so others can enjoy it and make their prom possible too.”

Out of this project students will be getting some hands on experience and will be gaining real world knowledge.

“I’m very excited about this project, our helping hands students are excited to be participating in something new and different and has never been tried before,” Thacker said. “It is going to provide a lot of opportunity to learn about merchandizing, about garment care, about kind of the retail end of things even though we’re not selling these items, and how do you put a store together and how you put a product out there for customers to shop and to select from.”

Thacker is looking forward watch the project unfold as they receive more donations and the time of prom approaches.

“We have never done this before,” Thacker said. “There are other schools in larger cities that have done this, so this is something new, and we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully it will be well received in the community and we get donations and well received by the students and they participate in selecting formal wear.”

19kpotter@usd489.com