Generous women at TCU cleaned out their closets this spring and donated about 340 fancy dresses to Texas women in need of a little beauty in their lives.

The College of Education coordinated the collection of 200 formal dresses to donate to Fort Hood, Texas, Army wives. The wives of enlisted soldiers sometimes skip welcome-home balls and other events because they cannot afford to buy dresses.

In another dress drive, junior deaf education major Chandler Mallams launched the project that collected 143 prom dresses to donate to the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin. The collection was carried out by TCU’s chapter of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association.

Chris Urquhart ’02, a counselor at Watagua Middle School, launched the formal dress drive after hearing about the new Fort Hood Area Enlisted Spouses Club’s Belle of the Ball gown closet, which lends dresses to soldier’s wives.

Urquhart contacted TCU for help in the dress drive, and she was met with an outpouring of generosity from faculty, staff and students, especially sororities and even a few fraternities.

The outpouring of generosity was the result of patriotism as well as a desire to support women who were undergoing stressful separations, says Becky Taylor of the College of Education.

The prom dress drive began when Mallams wondered what to do with all of the prom dresses she and her four sisters had in their closets.

Mallams heard about the school for the deaf as part of her coursework at TCU.

The formal dresses can be worn at the school’s proms or in its theater department, Mallams told the TCU Daily Skiff.