Work Clothes
Like a teenager making an entrance to her first high school prom, Maria Benitez slowly emerged from the Dress-4-Success changing room, clearly aware of the impact she was making on those watching her.
The 32-year-old job seeker walked over to a full-length mirror and admired the smart gray suit hanging perfectly on her petite frame.
Janet Lavender, who helped select the outfit, handed her a pair of practically new black suede pumps. Slipping into them, Benitez smiled. Like Cinderella, she was ready to go out and take charge of her future.
“Wow! You look hot,” Lavender said to Benitez, as she selected a necklace to complete the ensemble. “I can tell you’re feeling more than ‘shipping and receiving’ right now. You’re looking much more like ‘manager.’ ”
Benitez nodded: “I’m going to look for a supervisor job. That’s the direction I want to go in.”
Whichever direction she chooses, Benitez probably will have a leg up, thanks to the efforts of Lavender, 40, founder of the nonprofit organization Dress-4-Success.
Housed in three locations--the Sydney M. Irmas Transitional Living Center in North Hollywood, the Greater Avenue for Independence (GAIN) regional office in Panorama City and at the BUILD Chatsworth/Northridge Work Force and Industry Center--the organization provides, free, professional clothing for low-income people looking for a job.
Lavender’s Dress-4-Success has outfitted about 5,000 clients since its 1996 inception, through corporate and private donations of barely used, high-quality clothing.
“Janet gives our clients a sense of self-esteem,” said Jackie Brown, BUILD’s deputy project director. “And because she’s been where many of her clients are, they can relate to her.”
Lavender, a Cal State Long Beach graduate with a business degree, knows exactly what her clients have been through.
Following her college graduation, the Sun Valley native quickly achieved success in a variety of business ventures.
But about nine years ago, reeling from her mother’s death, she began a descent into cocaine addiction that lasted six years. It’s a move she still cannot comprehend.
“It was not part of my character or upbringing to be involved with drugs,” Lavender said. “But I got in pretty deep.”
After losing her townhouse and car and facing a future with no prospects, Lavender and her 9-month-old baby sought refuge in early 1996 at the Valley Shelter in North Hollywood.
Several months later, the single mother landed an interview for a bank job, but she didn’t have the appropriate clothes. She scraped together enough money to buy an interview outfit, and she got the job.
Eager to help those in similar situations, Lavender created Dress-4-Success in November 1996. She stored donated clothes in her one-bedroom North Hollywood apartment until she could get them over to the GAIN office, which was happy to have them.
Today, the three boutiques, as she calls them, are housed in accessible, attractive spaces where clients select their clothes and accessories from racks resembling department store displays.
“I love that we’re able to empower people to be who they were meant to become,” Lavender said. “I’ve lived in the rooms they’re living in, and ate in the same cafeterias. I changed my life and know how good it feels to be free.”
