School is back in session, and that means, for most high school students, Homecoming is fast approaching, and with it, the opportunity to dress up and celebrate with peers at a formal dance. For many girls, this is an exciting time and a chance to go shopping for the perfect dress. But for others, the expenses involved create unnecessary financial stress that, in some cases, may force them to miss out on a major high school milestone.
Rebecca (“Becca”) Kirtman wanted to change that. While a freshman at Nova High School in Davie, she realized that purchasing dresses and accessories for Homecoming and Prom presented a significant financial hardship for some students, and she made it her mission to ensure that all girls, no matter their financial situation, had access to formal dresses.
The idea came to Becca after reading an article in a teen magazine about female students at a private school in California who decided to donate their dresses to a less affluent school in their community. Inspired by the article and determined to create this kind of opportunity for less affluent students in her own community, Becca began writing letters to different manufacturers requesting dress donations.
Through her project, known as the Nova High School Dress Bank, Becca singlehandedly collected and donated more than 250 brand-new formal dresses, helping girls across Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties attend their high school Proms and Homecoming dances.
When a tragic automobile accident took Becca’s life in 2003, her parents immediately decided to continue their daughter’s work, turning her project into a registered nonprofit organization named Becca’s Closet.
“It was a very easy decision,” recalls Jay Kirtman, Becca’s father and president of the organization’s Board of Directors. “She started this and we needed to continue it, so we formed the organization within 10 days of her passing.”
The Kirtmans changed the name to Becca’s Closet both to honor Becca and because her friends were always raiding her closet and borrowing her clothes.
From the beginning, Becca’s Closet garnered a lot of support from the community, with several members of the Florida Panthers organization jumping on board. “It took on a life of its own,” says Kirtman. “We were almost immediately on CNN, the ‘Today Show,’ ‘Inside Edition,’ and many other TV shows.”
The national media coverage spurred inquiries from people across the country wanting to do the same thing in their communities. Becca’s Closet now has a national presence, with more than 50 chapters across the United States all run by volunteers.
South Florida remains the organization’s operational center. “We currently have over 7,000 dresses locally in South Florida,” says Kirtman. Becca’s Closet recently received a donation of 1,000 dresses from fashion retail chain Windsor. “When the organization receives a large donation like this, we reach out to chapters around the country to see who needs dresses and then distribute them accordingly,” explains Kirtman.
Every year, Becca’s Closet dresses thousands of girls in South Florida, and tens of thousands across the country. “The most rewarding thing for me is the appreciation people have when they get a dress,” says Kirtman. “Hopefully they know what Rebecca did and what she stood for. And we only hope they continue doing something in their own communities.”
To qualify for a dress, you must be a high school student with financial need who cannot afford to purchase a dress for a school-sponsored event/dance.
“We’re on the honor system,” explains Kirtman. “If they tell us they can’t afford a dress, we give them a dress.” The honor system is in place to protect the girls. “It’s hard enough for kids who can’t afford things to jump through hoops and prove everything. We want this to be a positive experience.”
Girls seeking a dress need to provide a current high school ID and answer the question of how they would get a dress if they didn’t get it from Becca’s Closet. They do not have to provide tax returns or other financial documentation. “We’ve had a couple of kids in our 20-plus years who have gone home without a dress,” recalls Kirtman. “You can count that on one hand, and those are the kids who are trying to beat the system.” Becca’s Closet also serves a lot of girls in the foster care system, girls who are homeless, and those in the court system.
For the past 23 years, Becca’s Closet has had a donated central distribution center located inside Festival Marketplace in Coconut Creek, where girls could make an appointment, go see the dresses, and try them on. “They worked one on one with an adult volunteer and two student volunteers and had their own private dressing room,” says Kirtman.
In lower-income areas, the organization will sometimes get more than 30 students from the same school and takes thoughtful steps to ensure that each girl still feels special.
“We keep logs on which high school the girls go to and what dress they got, because we don’t want to give the kids who go to the same high school the same dress,” explains Kirtman. If a girl does choose the same dress that someone in her school already chose, the volunteers inform her and give her the option of selecting another dress.
With the closure of Festival Marketplace in May, Becca’s Closet is now looking for a new home. “We have not been able to find a home to distribute dresses for girls who need them,” says Kirtman. “If we don’t procure something, we’re going to be doing pop-ups at a major hotel and will be doing a big giveaway at the end of September.” Ideally, Becca’s Closet would prefer to remain in central Broward near major highways to be easily accessible for kids across Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Broward counties.
On Nov. 11, the organization is hosting its annual fundraising luncheon at Anthony’s Runway 84 in Fort Lauderdale.
To donate dresses, to get involved, or for more information, visit www.beccascloset.org.