New Canaan High School junior Adelaide Tuff first visited Open Doors about two years ago.
Adelaide Tuff
Her family had already been involved in the Norwalk shelter and support services organization, making about 1,000 sandwiches during the pandemic. Her older brother, Oliver, founded Feeding 500, which sees dozens of NCHS and Darien students raise money for the Open Doors food program.
“They didn’t really have many donors who were able to donate food during that time, just because of the overwhelming amount of need they had,” Adelaide Tuff recalled. “So once I saw my brother do that, I had a realization that I wanted to do something like that, as well, because we’ve been involved for so long.”
She did.
Last year, Tuff held a clothing drive for the Open Doors “Community Closet,” a free store where families in need can shop for seasonal clothing, shoes and household necessities. She led an effort to collect 45 large bags of clothing—about 1,500 items for the Community Closet.
This year, Tuff—who is interested in fashion—has a more specific goal in mind: Provide teens who use the Community Closet with prom dresses in an effort she has dubbed ‘Fashion Forward.’
The Community Closet at Open Doors in Norwalk. Photo courtesy of Adelaide Tuff
“My brother started Feeding 500 and he wanted me to take that over last year, but I want to do something that I was more interested in,” she recalled. “I had the tour of Open Doors maybe two years ago now and I realized while I was there that there was not much clothing that would appeal to teenagers these days. And people in my high school obviously have a lot of resources to wear the clothes that they feel good in and want to express themselves with, so I wanted to be able to give other high schoolers the opportunity to wear clothes that they want to express themselves in. Clothes that they feel good and comfortable in.”
She coordinated with a staff member at Open Doors to collect lightly used prom dresses. Using this Sign-Up Genius form, Tuff has already collected about 40 prom dresses for high school students who use Open Doors. She’s collecting through May 19.
“I know many of the people in New Canaan that I’ve talked to that have already donated, they really only wear their dress once,” Tuff said. “And then let’s say you have a dress for junior year, you also have a dress for senior year prom. And really only wear their dress once. It’s pretty easy to get lightly used dresses. If we didn’t get one that’s lightly used, we probably wouldn’t have brought it or been able to give it to someone. But so far all of our dresses are definitely lightly used and we also asked for them to be cleaned before [donating].”
After donors sign up through the Sign-Up Genius form for a specific pick-up time and day, Tuff herself drives to their houses to collect the gently used prom dresses for Fashion Forward.
“Then I bring it back to my house and I have to set up a day with Open Doors where I bring the dresses down and we hang them up and people are able to come,” she said.
In addition to the 40 already donated this year, Tuff said she has 20 dresses from past clothing drives and events.
“I think I’ve just seen how fortunate my town is and how fortunate I am to be able to wear clothing that I feel good in and expressing myself through my clothing, and I just want everyone to be able to have that opportunity,” she said.
Sign up here to donate a prom dress to Open Doors through NCHS junior Adelaide Tuff’s ‘Fashion Forward’ project. She can be reached via email at tuffadelaide@gmail.com.
Bravo!!!! What a blessing and a gift. Thank you for all your efforts and the example you have set.
Michael – thank you for publishing. I was not aware of Open Doors but now that I am will definitely be looking to donate to help their shoppers.