Dress donations will help fund cancer research in Sault this weekend
SAULT STE. MARIE — The Miss International 500 beauty pageant is teaming up with Relay for Life to raise funds for cancer research with old dresses.
Current and former members of the Miss International 500 pageant are donating many of their old formal dresses so they can be sold for cheap to local girls and women in a charity event this Saturday. All the money raised by the dress donations will be donated to the Relay for Life, which helps to raise money for cancer research.
The Miss International 500 pageant is a long running tradition in Northern Michigan where women from America and Canada compete to be Miss I-500. Taking place the day before the I-500 snowmobile race, the pageant has a long history of involvement in the community both in and outside of the race.
Relay for Life is an annual relay walk which helps to raise funds for cancer research and is one of the largest fundraising events dedicated to cancer in the entire world.
Brenda Eagle-Ransom, a member of the I-500 pageant, donated her space in Red's Revolving Rental to host the event.
The Miss I-500 pageant regularly encourages its members to participate in fundraisers and other charitable events. The idea for the dress donations came to be because many current and former pageant members still have many formal dresses from their pageants that they no longer wear. By donating their old dresses, Eagle-Ransom said she hopes to give local girls a chance to get nice formal dresses cheaply.
"When you're a group in a pageant like this, you have a lot of dresses," she said. "We need to all make room in our closets but also we want everybody to feel pretty and be able to get to prom."
While the event is being organized with the help of the Miss I-500 pageant, donations are being accepted from anyone who has a dress that can be donated. Whether it was originally for a pageant, prom, a wedding or something else, formal dresses of all kinds are accepted.
Donations are encouraged but not required to receive a donated dress.
"If a young lady comes in and gets a dress we ask for a donation but we're not setting a price on anything. If she only has $20 for this dress that's all we'll ask for," said Eagle-Ransom. "If there's a young woman that comes in the door and doesn't have any money at all and she needs a dress, we're gonna give it to her."
The sale takes place 10 a.m. through 3 p.m. on April 23 at Red's Revolving Rental, 2733 Ashmun St.
For more information and visit the event's Facebook page.
This article originally appeared on The Sault News: Dress donations will help fund cancer research in Sault this weekend
