Local sisters play fairy godmother

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Published on Thursday, May 19, 2016

Submitted photo. (From left) Sisters Jade and Shaelyn Leflar collected donations of grad dresses from local girls to send to Fort McMurray.

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Two sisters from Neepawa made an effort to send some glamour to graduating girls in Fort McMurray who lost theirs in the recent fire. Eighteen-year-old Shaelyn and 21-year-old Jade Leflar reached out to girls who have graduated from NACI in the past few years to see if they would be interested in donating their grad dresses to send to Alberta. 

“Actually, a girl from Brandon I know started collecting [dresses] and I heard about it, so I decided that I would donate my grad and escort dresses,” explained Shaelyn, who finished high school last year. 

Jade added, “I then had the idea that I should ask my friends if they wanted to donate theirs as well, but I did not have everyone’s cell phone numbers to contact them individually, so I made a post on my Facebook page. It was shared 14 times by my friends and I had people contact me to donate that I never would have thought about asking in the first place.”

In total, the Leflar girls received 19 dresses in three days from NACI graduates. “We didn’t think we would get such a big response, we were shocked, actually!” Shaelyn said. 

“It not only shocked us but reassured us that people in Neepawa are always willing to help others in need,” added Jade.

“We thought we’d only get a couple besides mine and hers, it was truly amazing. My whole bed was covered in dresses, I couldn’t even see it anymore,” explained Shaelyn. 

They took the load of dresses to Shaelyn’s friend in Brandon on May 9 so she could send them with the dresses she collected. “Her friend was taking them to Mainline Motors in Virden, as they were collecting anything that people wanted to donate and they were going to take a fleet of vehicles out with all the donations,” Jade explained. Shaelyn added that even as they were on their way to Brandon, there were girls sending them messages wanting to donate their dresses too. 

“It made me so proud that people who have spent hundreds of dollars on their dresses were willing to donate so that a person that they will most likely never meet will be able to have a dress and feel beautiful on their grad day after going through such a horrifying experience,” said Jade.

“It’s truly amazing how a bunch of girls from here had such a big heart to help others,” Shaelyn said. “I hope that girls in Fort [McMurray] will feel as amazing as we did in our dresses and that we make their day a bit better!”