I love being able to give back where I can.  I can’t build houses or cook meals, but I can take photos that don’t suck all the time, and somewhere in my travels I found Michelle and the Putting On the Glitz project.

We all work together to provide local high school graduates in need with ‘formal attire’ so that they can attend their graduation festivities with pride.

In short, this means that students in need who can’t afford the hundreds or in some cases thousands of dollars to have a “proper” grad experience (dresses and tuxes and hair and makeup and formal photos and limos and whatnot) get sponsored by someone (so it isn’t for just anyone) to have that experience.

This involves volunteers who set up a gymnasium full of dresses and clothing, hairdressers and makeup artists and barbers to get everyone looking their best, people who will help the kids look for the right dresses, jewelry, shoes, ties, hats, and anything else to make them look and feel like a princess or prince for the day.  The night finishes with amazingly done senior portraits of them in their new attire, and formal grad photos with them in cap and gown.

Unfortunately due to privacy concerns, I can’t show you any of the photos of the kids, but I can show you some of the behind the scenes of the event before it was filled with kids to show you the pure scale of the entire operation.  Michelle and her team deserve all the credit in the world for getting this madness organized.  An amazing group doing wonderful things for deserving kids.

Here are some photos of the gym and the volunteers who were responsible for this year’s event.

You can find out more about Putting On The Glitz at the PLEA website, or through the Facebook event.