Putting a New Face on a New Life Boosts Self-Esteem
The program is called “Queen for a Day,” but you won’t see it on television. Instead, this is a private event in which the queen--a formerly homeless woman--is pampered in a Bel-Air skin-care salon and given better gifts than an ersatz crown.
She will leave Vera’s Retreat in the Glen (where the client roster includes Kelly McCarty, the reigning Miss USA) with new clothes and a bag of beauty products. She will have had lunch, a facial, a make-over, a manicure, a new hairdo. At the door, hugs will be handed out and so will an appointment card to remind her of her next visit. But before she returns, there will be phone conversations.
“This is a full self-esteem program,” says salon owner Vera Brown. “You have to follow through with phone calls to let them know someone cares.”
Brown started the project in January to honor “graduates” of the Los Angeles Mission’s City Light Rehabilitation program. To graduate, explains program supervisor Jackie Howard, candidates must live on the premises, participate in self-improvement studies for one year and “successfully deal with their past hurts.”
Jean Vavao, the first Queen for a Day, is a 24-year-old single mother and former drug addict who now works full time for the mission. Her new credentials include a General Equivalency Diploma, and she hopes to enter the computer field. When she arrived at the mission, she says, “I was at my lowest. I wanted something to change.”
The visit “made me feel really beautiful,” she recalls. Brown, she adds, has been an inspiration. “She believes in me.”
To help the women believe in themselves, Brown gives them a skin-care routine to follow at home and arranges a hair-care session at Carlton International. Vavao’s long hair, which “wouldn’t do anything,” was transformed into a chic blunt cut; she was shown how to make the most of natural curls.
The flattering print dress she is wearing came from Jane Singer, a Los Angeles apparel company that responded to Brown’s request for clothes. “I like the feel of this,” explains sales manager Sheri Safan. “Big charities tend to get all the money. With the homeless, people tend to look the other way.”
As for Brown, she plans to do more. “I want to put a beauty shop in the mission’s new building. I eventually would like to give classes at the mission. People think of homeless women as bag ladies who don’t want to do anything for themselves,” she says, watching Queen Vavao pose for a photographer. “But that’s not true.”