A Cinderella Prom for 2 Troubled Girls

HENDERSON, Nev. —  The lavender skirt and shimmery top have been laid out for hours. Her nails freshly painted, the teenager walks by her room again just to look one more time.

“I’ve never been to a dance,” she says, glancing at her prom outfit.

Soon someone will come to do her makeup and put up her hair. And later, Tiffany and her friend Crystal will go to their senior prom--something they never thought they would get to do.

The girls, both 17, live in a group home where almost every activity from eating to sleeping is scheduled for them. Visits with friends or after-school activities are monitored and planned. The 13 girls placed at Regina Hall have exhausted the foster care system and have severe behavioral problems because of abuse.

They ended up here when they ran out of options.

Tiffany has been in state custody since she was 2. Her father died, and she met her mother just once. She still celebrates the day she was adopted--even though she was removed from the family after officials found evidence that she was being abused.

In a children’s home, Tiffany learned she had a sister. But that sister died of diabetes last year at 20, and Tiffany keeps an urn of her ashes on her dresser.

Despite a lifetime of hardship, she is much like any other teenager. She likes to dance, listens to hip-hop music and hopes to go to college. And she really wants to go to her prom.

Regina Hall’s auxiliary board raised money to buy dresses for Tiffany and Crystal. They earned the chance to go by staying out of trouble in the weeks before the prom; they completed all their chores, didn’t skip school and didn’t run away.

Because of neglect, the girls lack maturity and may struggle to make good decisions. Some turned to drugs or lived on the streets. They were taken from their parents or never even knew them. Foster homes didn’t work.

“These girls come from really tough circumstances,” says Barbara Marz, board president for Regina Hall, which is run by Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada.

The prom is doubly special for them. “Our goal,” Marz says, “was to provide that normal experience that most teenage girls want to do--just to kind of feel like a little princess for a day.”

The girls have waited weeks for this Saturday night. After the dance at the Henderson Convention Center, they are allowed to go to dinner with friends, but must be back in the home by 11p.m.

“I get to be a normal teenager,” Tiffany says. “I’m more nervous than excited. I didn’t get asked to go, but I’m going.”

Tiffany is a senior at Basic High School, which is hosting the prom. Her friend Crystal, who dropped out of school, is working to get her high school equivalency certificate.

Crystal and brushes on taupe-colored eye shadow. “My last dance was eighth grade,” she says.

That was before she ran away from an uncle’s house, where she had been living since her mother died when Crystal was 11. She never knew her father. She became a ward of the state two years ago.

“I think I could have done stuff different,” she says. “Some of it’s my fault.”

But tonight she will try to forget all that.

“To just feel normal, to meet people, to have fun, to get away from the house,” she says.

In Tiffany’s room, Geri Smith, a member of the auxiliary board, arrives to style the teen’s hair. She brushes the long, brown hair up into a ponytail, then makes sections of big curls. Smith helps with makeup too.

“Oh, I look so cute!” Tiffany says, admiring herself in a mirror.

Several other girls peer in at their housemate, and Tawana, 17, hurries to write a poem about the night.

“For the most special day of their lives that they’ll never forget,” she writes. “To be able to tell their young ones about their very first prom day.”

Crystal finishes her makeup, and Smith helps with her hair.

“I’ve always wanted to be a model,” Crystal tells Smith.

Then, she shuts her bedroom door and, a few minutes later, makes her debut.

“She’s coming out!” one girl screams as the group gathers around Crystal’s door.

She twirls around, and her friends tell her how beautiful she looks.

“It’s funny seeing me like this,” Tiffany says, shrugging.

Crystal worries that her tummy sticks out in her slinky dress.

“Suck in your gut; don’t eat too much and you should be all right,” offers employee Shandya Smith.

Crystal and Tiffany pose for pictures, then beg shift supervisor Muriel Zachary not to take them to the dance in the van with a charity logo painted on the side.

Zachary agrees to use an unmarked van, and the girls go outside.

“Everybody better be awake at 11!” Crystal yells over her shoulder.

They arrive at the prom and soon blend into the crowd of teenagers in tuxedos and fancy gowns.

“I get to be Cinderella for a day,” Tiffany says, heading toward the dance floor.