Hidden away in the teacher’s lounge is a closet stuffed with prom dresses of all shapes, sizes, and colors remaining untouched by students.

With prom coming up very soon, girls often become frantic trying to find the perfect dress for the dance. However, these dresses can range anywhere from $80 to over $600. Luckily, for the girls who either do not want to spend the money on an expensive dress or simply cannot afford it, the Prom Closet can help. The Prom Closet is run by Pre-AP World History teacher Cassi Unger and AP U.S. History teacher Rachel Huseman. Students can rent a dress from the Prom Closet for $25 and keep the dress for a week. However, very few students know about the Prom Closet.

“We put it in the announcements,” Unger said. “Especially now that we don’t have KRAD, I don’t know how to get the information out there.”

Prom Closet has been an active program for about eight to ten years now according to Unger. Unger collects donations from the community, students, and faculty. Alongside the fact many students do not know about the Prom Closet, Unger said the students who do know are hesitant to rent a dress so only a couple of students rent a dress every year.

“Students may not wanna show up to prom in a dress that others know is rented or a hand-me-down,” Unger said. “We had talked about maybe doing a fashion show or something to show the pictures of the dresses on like a video announcement, but then if someone rents that dress and shows up in it there was that stigma that you’re in a hand-me-down dress.”

According to Unger, the dresses are in excellent condition. Unger and Huseman go through the dresses every year and pull out dresses that are stained, outdated, or too short. This year they ended up pulling out about 50 dresses and donated them to the theatre department to use for costumes or material.

“We do recommend that if a young lady rents the dress to get the dress dry cleaned first,” Unger said. “We ask when they’re donated to be dry cleaned but sometimes that doesn’t happen.”

The money that students pay to rent the dress is donated to the Raider Assistance fund every year according to Unger.

“The Raider Assistance fund is money that our school has to give money to a student who needs to take an ACT or SAT and can’t afford it,” Unger said. “The money can also help a student get glasses or help a student whose house has burned.”