INSIDE WISCONSIN SPORTS MAGAZINE

                                                                        August 2006 Issue

                                                            STUDENT INVOLVEMENT

 

            Kenosha Tremper High School Girls’ Soccer Coach Todd Hardy got an idea when he was down visiting friends in the New Orleans area in early April.  “I was talking about how the girls in our high school were gearing up for prom, and I realized that down in New Orleans, there wasn’t anything that could come close to being a prom dress.  Al the stores were busy stocking essentials [in the wake of Hurricane Katrina],and it just wasn’t a priority to order prom dresses.” 

            Although prom are perhaps not a necessity, Hardy felt bad that high schoolers in the New Orleans area should have to miss out on such a momentous high school event.

“The whole idea suddenly fell together in my mind.  So I mentioned to my friend Christine [Morales, New Orleans resident] that perhaps our soccer team could gather up some old dresses to donate to a high school, in the New Orleans area.  Before I knew it, Christine had jumped right on board, organizing things on her end.”  And back in Wisconsin, the girls’ soccer team was into the effort wholeheartedly.

            The girls were thrilled to be helping students in the New Orleans area achieve a sense of normalcy after Katrina.  Hardy explains, “Many girls brought in five, six, or even seven dresses.  There was a wide range-from formal to flashy and modern.  The girls had a ton of fun packing up the dresses and seeing what everyone else had brought in.”

            Many of the girls had attached personal notes tot eh dresses, saying things like, “I wore this dress to my homecoming, and I hope that you have as much fun as I did.”

            Some of the guys at Kenosha Tremper got in on the act as well by donating suits and shirts they no longer needed.  All in all, the girls’ soccer team ended up collecting 11 boxes of prom clothing, which they shipped to Grace King High School.  They heard from those students a week before their prom and, “they were ecstatic,” shares Hardy.  “They said that we really made their year and they’re going to recycle the dresses for next year so that other students have the same opportunity.”

            For their efforts to improve the lives of Grace King High School students in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Inside Wisconsin Sports congratulates Kenosha Tremper’s girls’ soccer team.