Our View: Be a diamond — support Dress for Success

It was a nail-biter of a finale if ever there was one.

Dress for Success Luzerne County held its annual Diamonds in the Woods fundraising dinner on Thursday evening, and it came with an added bit of drama, as everyone wondered who would win the night’s actual diamond.

As staff writer Pat Kernan reported, dozens of champagne flutes had a small diamond floating at the bottom of the glass, but only one of those diamonds was actually real, to be judged by Emile Zafrany of Simon and Co. Jewelers in Kingston.

But it took Zafrany until almost the very last person to find the real diamond; after hours of searching, and increasingly worried looks from event organizers, Megan Morgan of Forty Fort learned she had the real diamond, and a cheer went up through the crowd.

The search made for a fun and compelling story and was a great way to wrap up the night. It also reminds us how success in life — and particularly job-hunting — can feel like a desperate search against long odds.

And that is why Dress for Success is such a diamond for our community.

The nonprofit organization is dedicated to empowering local women by offering a network of support and professional attire to help them land a job and begin to thrive.

“Many of us are blessed with a safety net … Dress for Success Luzerne County is a safety net for those who don’t have one,” event chair Katrina Wallace said. “We all know that building a family-sustaining career takes more than a good outfit; it takes skills. That’s why Dress for Success Luzerne County provides the opportunity for our women to get those skills.”

Since Dress for Success Luzerne County became operational in December 2010, the program has reached over 1,750 economically challenged women from the area, to cite statistics from a story we ran last year.

So the need is not new, but COVID-19 has made that need more acute.

Linda Armstrong-Loop, founder and director of the organization, said Thursday that the pandemic has exacerbated the need for programs like hers, because it shows the difficulty a lot of women have getting a job right now, even in the face of a worker shortage.

“There’s all these hiring signs, but if your school is closed intermittently because of COVID, or your child is now sick, how many employers are really gonna be patient and say, ‘OK, take the two weeks off to quarantine’?” she said. “Please understand, people do want to work. Our women want to work. They want to raise their families with respect and dignity and be part of an incredible community.”

The story of how Loop founded Dress for Success Luzerne County is inspirational in itself.

She had worked on Wall Street for 30 years and five years after 9/11, she decide she had enough and came home.

While in New York City, Loop had volunteered with Dress for Success and she fell in love with the concept — to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

“I knew the importance of Dress for Success,” Loop said. “I knew a pair of shoes could change someone’s life.”

The testimonials on their website, luzernecounty.dressforsuccess.org, help underscore the point.

“Thank you is hardly enough to say in appreciation of what you have done for me. You helped lift me out of a dark place and it gave me hope that I will be a professional again.”

“Just knowing that someone cares enough to really help is a blessing to me.”

We at the Times Leader have written about the program, and members of our team have personally supported the program. We believe in the work Dress for Success Luzerne County has done, and we wholeheartedly believe they are worthy of your support, too.

You can donate clothes, cash, or volunteer for a range of needs including mentoring, consulting, and helping maintain the group’s inventory of clothing. Visit the website or call 570-270-4949.

Be a diamond and help lift up women in our community.

— Times Leader