Alberta skateboarders to take 120 prom dresses to Mexico for exploited girls

A group of skateboardersin Medicine Hat, Alta., is learning all about prom dresses as their clubhouse is being flooded with dozens of sparklygowns which they're planning to take all the way to Mexico and donate to exploited teen girls to help them celebrate theirquinceanera.

By Monday morning, theMedicine Hat Skateboard Association had received 169 donated prom dresses more than its 120 dress-goal destined to be worn by teenage girls in Mexico.

The girls live at a safe house run by a couple from Alberta, and many of the girls have had difficult lives marked by sexual exploitation, drug use, prostitution or neglect. They don't have families to organize a major cultural event, such as the quinceanera, which marks when a girlturns 15.

"They have to celebrate these coming of age parties alone and it's a very sad thing, so theytry to do it as a community the best they can," organizer Levi Switzer told theCalgary Eyeopeneron Monday.

The skateboarding groups, made up of mostly teenage boys, some girls and a few young adults, is heading to Mexico on Friday to help build an extension to the safe house. They've raised $10,000 for the project and are set to bus from Medicine Hat to get there.

Switzer was first struck with the idea to bring dresses to the girls during a trip to Mexico last month. He was there to look at the safe home, called Casa Esther, before construction begins.

"It's a mix of emotions when you're down there," Switzer said. "It's this beacon of hope but it's also such aheartful, heavy thing to kind of carry and walk, to look at these girls in the eyes and know that they've lived more life than I hope I never see."

The safe house opened in 2010 in the coastal city ofEnsenada, Baja California, Mexico. It's run by Randy and Sandra Huebert from Lloydminster, Alta., who provide a home for girls as young as six who've been sexually exploited. The expansion will mean the Hueberts can double how many girls they can accommodate.

On a tour of the facility, staff showed Switzer their "dress room," where they keep the dresses safe from the girls, who have gotten old ones muddy by wearing them during soccer games.

When he returned to Canada, the group posted a shout-out for old prom dresses on Facebook. Hundreds of shareslater, the group had collected dozens of the colourful, often bejewelled dresses.

They have so many, they had to also ask for suitcases to pack up the poofy dresses.

"They don't pack smaller," Switzer said, laughing. "They're very large."

They've collected so many dresses, they're going to donate some to local Medicine Hat organizations, and the home in Mexico will share extras with other women's organizations.

The teens and young adults were hoping to pack the room for aquinceanerawhile in town, but none of the girls turn 15 while they're on spring break next week.

"We're just a group of skateboarders so we know nothing about dresses, let alone about what we're about to do," Switzer said. "It's just going to be a really good time."

The skateboard association tries to teach its members about caring for community through charitable acts.

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With files from Elissa Carpenter and theCalgary Eyeopener.