Thank you for supporting local girls through SEMO Prom Mothers

With the school year 2022-2023 in the books and all those semi-formal and formal event memories now in iPhone storage, SEMO Prom Mothers of Cape Presbyterian churches, the local chapter of the national not-for-profit Becca's Closet, was so glad to be there and help our community teens be ready for their special occasion!

Since starting a chapter in Jackson in 2017-18, we have grown each year, and this year certainly exceeded the others. We want to thank all those who helped us "prom mothers" out.

Special thanks to Cape Noon Optimist Club for their annual gift, and all the great press from the Southeast Missourian, including Mr. Jon Rust and the editorial board for their editorial about us! KFVS also gave us a great story that suddenly dropped a lot of new donations our way!

Last year, we were close to hitting the 200 mark of dress distributions after prom season, but this year we jumped way over that hurdle with a total of 253 dresses given out. We helped dress area girls for homecomings, winter balls, and even 8th grade graduations! During homecoming season, we gave away our 1,000th dress since 2017. That was really exciting, and the recipient was greeted with goodies and balloons!

Girls who drove the farthest: from our north was a St. Louis girl, and on the south side we had several foreign exchange girls who spent the school year in Neelyville, Missouri. These girls are always excited to experience the American football season and our American spring prom! Our Illinois neighbors visited us as well as Meadow Heights and Woodland on the west.

In total, we served 34 school districts in our surrounding areas, plus we helped out 2013 Cape Central Alumna Caroline Retter. She is now an urban middle school counselor, and she requested several short semi-formal dresses for her school's eighth grade graduation. We boxed up our extra dresses, and her mother, Karen Retter, one of our volunteers, gladly delivered!

Again, SEMO Prom Mothers of Cape Presbyterian churches could not help our girls without our community support and our national not-for-profit Becca's Closet.

See you in the fall!

Brenda Randolph, of Cape Girardeau, is a volunteer with SEMO Prom Mothers of Cape Presbyterian Churches, a local chapter of the national not-for-profit Becca's Closet.