Dressing for Success and Self-Esteem

Battered women who seek help to improve life for themselves and their children are usually too busy coping to spend any time pampering themselves. But the exception is coming up Saturday in Newport Beach.

That’s when more than 200 survivors of domestic violence will be guests at a daylong annual fair put on by the nonprofit Working Wardrobes . . . for a New Start. They’ll get facials, massages, their nails done, new hairstyles and plenty of new clothes--seven outfits for each woman.

In other words, something to help boost their self-esteem, a problem that is almost always a byproduct of being abused by someone they had expected to love them.

Claudia Thair, who works for a women’s health care company, was one of the volunteers at last year’s event. Here’s some of her reaction:

“When these women arrived, some of them appeared down. They weren’t very well dressed, but you have to understand, many of them had to leave their homes in a hurry with only the clothes on their back.

“After spending the day getting made-over, they left with an air of confidence. As a group, they looked even better than the volunteers.”

One of the women told Thair on her way out: “I’ve never had anyone be this nice to me.”

Here’s part of a letter that another woman sent after last year’s event:

“That special day was the final step I needed to move forward with confidence. . . . I feel the only way I can thank you is to let you know the ending to the story. I returned to college and completed earning my teaching credential. I am currently a special education teacher at the high school level.”

It will take several hundred volunteers to put on the make-over day. (Dozens of hairstylists are donating their time.) Thair told me about one who is special, named Nora. She was once one of the battered women receiving attention on that day. She’s now employed full time and comes back each year as a volunteer. And Nora always wears a dress that she was given the year she was one of the guests.

The location for the event cannot be disclosed. There’s too much concern that a husband or boyfriend who battered these women will show up. But it’s large enough to have 60 hairstyling stations, as well as booths set up to help women with job opportunities or career counseling.

The clothes these women will be given have been donated to Working Wardrobes during the past year. But don’t get the idea this is the kind of wardrobe you might find at a rummage sale or a thrift store. A well-dressed friend of mine offered to donate some clothes to Working Wardrobes and got turned away because what she offered didn’t quite meet its standards for the annual “Day of Self-Esteem.” This is quality merchandise.

Where did this terrific idea come from? From Jerri Rosen of Irvine, who runs her own ad agency. Startled by the statistics on domestic violence, she founded Working Wardrobes with help from five friends in 1991. They first called their group The Success Suit. The first “Self-Esteem” day was held with 30 women from a few shelters. Now these “guests” come from 17 county shelters.

“This is beyond anything I dreamed,” Rosen said. “When we started out, we only planned on doing it just that one year. But later, everyone kept coming up with suggestions how we could do even more, and so we just kept going.”

Rosen’s goal now is to help groups in other states put on the same type of program. After information about it was printed in a national magazine, numerous inquiries came in.

Now for Well-Dressed Men: Here’s another clothes-for-a-cause item: Firefighters from around Orange County will appear in tuxedos at the Galaxy Concert Theater in Santa Ana tonight to compete for an appearance in the 1998 FireFoxes calendar.

The calendar is a fund-raising effort of the Orange County Burn Assn. Each month features a different Orange County firefighter in his working clothes.

I got a chuckle from Amy Gilliland Faeth, spokeswoman for the event, who told me, “There are some handsome men in that calendar--and I’m a married woman.”

You can buy tickets for the event ($35) at the door, and plenty of seats are left. Proceeds from the event and the calendar go toward sending young burn victims to Burn Camp. Last year the association raised enough to send 23 youngsters to camp; this year’s goal is 50. By the way, for the cost of your ticket, you get a free 1997 calendar, featuring last year’s contest winners.

Retire? Why?: When civil courts clerk Selma Price reached her 60s, she inquired whether the county expected her to retire. No, she learned, she could keep on working. So she did. She celebrates her 80th birthday on Sunday, and she’s still working at the county courthouse in Santa Ana, where she is now a supervisor.

And Price still isn’t thinking about retirement.

A mother of three, Price had worked at home raising her family. But her husband died 26 years ago and she decided to go to work. She’s been with the county 22 years now.

She told me: “I enjoy my work, and I like getting up in the morning and knowing I have a place to go.”

Will there be an office party? Price smiled and said, “I suspect so. They always do that kind of thing here.”

Wrap-Up: Working Wardrobe almost always collects more clothing than the women at “Day of Self-Esteem” need. Some will be donated to Girls Inc., a Costa Mesa-based program that helps high school girls with low self-esteem, so they’ll have good clothes for job interviews. But you’ve got a shot at some of these items too. The leftover clothing goes on sale at Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Newport Beach on Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. All proceeds go toward helping the women in the shelters.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823, by fax at (714) 966-7711 or by e-mail atjerry.hicks@latimes.com.