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Our Fairy Godmother, which collects prom dresses for those who who cannot afford them, continues to grow under leadership of Cinnaminson native.
Jinhee Lee, a 2012 graduate of Cinnaminson High School, created the organization after realizing the high cost of a prom dress while in school.
She wanted girls in high school to have the ability to attend prom without spending a ton of money on their dress.
Lee’s organization continues to grow and has collected some 2,000 dresses in the past five years, which she names as her proudest moment.
“The proudest moment is hard to say,” Lee said. “I’ve been reflecting on past events and statistics. I thought back to 2012 when I only had a little over 150 dresses.”
“To be able to be on the phone with you right now and say we’ve collected over 2,000 dresses in the past five years is a very proud moment. It’s really the work of the community, my friends, my family; all those who’ve supported over the past five years.”
Our Fairy Godmother holds three prom dress drives per year where girls can look for an affordable prom dress.
“We’ve thought about taking Our Fairy Godmother and getting younger kids involved,” Lee said. “I’ve always been passionate about empowerment. I want to help raise awareness and help kids become aware of themselves.”
The events are held at one location in North Jersey, one location in Central Jersey and one location in South Jersey.
The South Jersey, and original location, is Cinnaminson High School.
“We’ve always had it at the high school since the very beginning,” Lee said. “It seems to be where everybody just knows it to be. In the past few years we were in three different locations. I still feel the CHS event is the most popular.”
The staff and board of Our Fairy Godmother features a host of Cinnaminson High School grads.
Hardik Patel is a member of the staff. The only non-CHS grad who works on the staff is Crystal Hill.
The board consists of Ronnie Mendoza, Samuel Udotong, Meg Schneider, Matthew Stouffer, Mahir Shah, and Patrick Sinko. All of board members graduated from the high school in 2012.
The organization is growing and will be changing names to Post Script in the not-so-distant future.
“I wanted to do an organization that would empower the youth,” Lee said. “We’re calling it Post Script. The reason why is that when people think about those who can change the world, the youth are an afterthought. I wanted to use a symbolic name for our organization.”
“We are going to keep Our Fairy Godmother going and want to do it as our first initiative with Post Script,” Lee said. “We want to get other students to make their own dress drive. We want to be able to hit many different cities and make an even bigger impact together.”
Lee wants Post Script to be a place that allows students the opportunity to have their ideas and ambitions heard.
The mission for Post Script, which is on the Our Fairy Godmother website, says, “The mission is to empower the youth to become leaders and lead their own peers and adults with their speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. This nonprofit organization will bring students together and reveal to them the great things they are capable of accomplishing, allowing society to profit with a bettered future generation.”
Post Script will partner with 15 schools in Burlington and Camden counties where clubs will be created. A teacher will be appointed to supervise, but instructed that the clubs are to be ‘student-run.’
“What we want to do is partner with different organizations such as UNICEF and focus on a different on every couple of months,” Lee said. “The kids will learn about the organizations and develop a fundraiser for them. We want them to take action.”
The organization has already partnered with one high school, which is located in North Carolina.
“Right now we have a school in North Carolina, Granville county High School, that has a class called The Edge,” Lee said.
“It’s basically a program where the students can be a business, but they’re in a class. The students are the CEO, CFO and so on. The CEO contacted me and she asked if she could partner with Our Fairy Godmother and start a dress drive at her own school. It’s going to be a test drive to see if it can be a successful model.”
Lee hopes that Post Script can grow over the next five-plus years into an organization that works on multiple initiatives.
“For Post Script, I see it growing into an organization able to run different types of initiatives. I don’t know if I see myself running it. I just entered into the professional world. I’m 22. I’m running this organization that a lot of people told me I couldn’t do. I want to keep that authenticity of a younger person running it down the road.”
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