Kicking Horse Job Corps seeks dress, tux donations
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KICKING HORSE — Laura Menard never had the chance to attend a prom, let alone high school, but she always wanted to go. Now as a student at Kicking Horse Job Corps, Menard and others who never had a chance to attend prom will get a second chance.
“I want to know what it would be like to look pretty for one night,” Menard said. “There isn’t much time for makeup at 5:30 a.m.”
Originally from Box Elder, Mont., Menard said she was pulled out of public school in the 7th grade and spent her teenage years caring for a sick relative. She left home at the age of 18. She is currently enrolled in the nursing assistant program at Kicking Horse and is the student body secretary.
Menard said that Job Corps students have packed schedules that do not leave much room for anything else that does not involve school.
According to Kicking Horse Job Corps Coordinator Shelly Fyant most students’ days begin early in the morning and involve not only job training and classes but also dorm duties that include cleaning of their rooms and common areas.
“A lot of people get stressed out,” Menard said of their structured schedules. “This is something fun and relaxing for everybody to do.”
In addition to helping organize the event, Menard is also spearheading an effort to get prom dresses and tuxedos donated for the occasion.
“You have people who want to go but can’t because they don’t have a dress,” Menard said. “Not all the guys can afford to rent a tuxedo. Very few people bring clothes like that to Job Corps.”
Menard is one of more than 200 students who attend Kicking Horse Job Corps and like Menard, there are some who have never attended prom before for different reasons
Lindsey Navarez, 20, from Greeley, Colo., is enrolled in the culinary arts program. When she was in high school, her mom told her she was too young to attend prom, so she is excited for the opportunity to attend again.
“I was always too young. I would have been a fun experience,” Navarez recalled, noting that her ideal prom dress would be pink or red. “I’m a shy person, so it will be good for me to live outside of this box I created where I am safe, and be around my friends and other people.”
Kicking Horse Jobs Corps started the prom about four years ago by a student government member who also didn’t attend high school prom.
Each year more than 100 students participate in the event. It is scheduled for Oct. 22 in the Kicking Horse Job Corps gymnasium and the tentative theme is a vintage masquerade.
Usually proms take place in the spring, but Menard said theirs is planned in the fall to cut back on costs.
“Nowadays people focus so much on the dress,” said Janet Gardner, co-owner of St-Char-Ro Floral and Event in Ronan. “It’s much more than putting on a pretty dress.”
St-Char-Ro Floral and Event has donated time and resources to the prom in the past. Gardner said some things the Job Corps rents and some are donated by the business. They often put students from Kicking Horse to work decorating and setting up for their own prom because it teaches them how to prepare for this type of event and cuts down on labor time.
Most of all, Gardner believes proms and dances teach young adults social and life skills such as how to tie a tie, ask a someone out on a date, how to use the right fork at dinner or how to dance.
Some of the dresses that have been donated to the Kicking Horse students are the results of connections Gardner has made through her business. She has put dress designers she encountered at trade and fashion shows in contact with the school so they can make donations.
Former students of Kicking Horse also have donated prom dresses to the cause.
“It’s sad what has been done to prom,” Gardner said. “Now it’s about who can have the most expensive dress, and it’s not about that, it’s about developing social skills. That is just as much a part of about being successful as learning to read or write.”
