Volunteers are the heart of Rally's mission!
Princesses with a Purpose
By Sydney Silver, The Princess Project Founder
I’ve always had a passion for giving back to those in need. I wanted to find a way to do so by doing what I love, which is performing. The summer of my freshman year in high school, the community theater where I performed began Disney-themed summer camps for kids in the area. A group of girls I was close with were counselors for the camps, and each week one of the counselors came dressed as a Disney princess to surprise the kids. When it came time for me to pull off Tinker Bell, I thoroughly enjoyed entertaining the kids! Their smiles, laughs and excitement gave me such a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I love Disney as much as I love giving back, so along came the idea of The Princess Project.
My idea was to create an organization that allowed my friends and me to dress up as Disney Princesses for charity. I shared my idea with the other girls who I worked with, and they loved it and said they were on board. I created a GoFundMe account to raise money for the dresses and wigs. In about six months, I raised around $500. This covered the cost of all of the wigs, but I wasn’t able to order the dresses as they were too expensive. I reached out to “Nita Costume Lady,” who made costumes for many shows where I performed. She was so kind to donate her time and make all of the dresses our girls wear today! Once the wigs arrived and the dresses were finished, I launched our website, Facebook page and Instagram page! Everything was coming together just as I had planned.
Rally Kid Alexa’s sister Jenna portrays Cinderella for The Princess Project.
The Princess Project allows girls 16+ to earn community service hours by performing as Disney Princess look-alikes at birthday parties and events. Seventy-five percent of the proceeds from these parties and events is donated to the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research. I knew I wanted to donate to a kid-oriented charity, but Rally really stood out to me. One of our “Cinderellas,” Jenna Rohrbach, is extremely involved with Rally through her sister, Rally Kid Alexa, who passed away from neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer. Jenna and I were close friends through our moms and the community theater we performed at together. Her sister’s story really touched me and encouraged me to look into giving to Rally. I thought that Rally was the best fit because of the connection between the charity and one of our princesses, plus the organization gives 93 cents of every dollar raised directly to its mission of finding better treatments with fewer long-term side effects and, ultimately, cures for childhood cancer, the #1 disease killer of kids in America. We also just happened to bring on board Rally Kid Mary, who plays multiple princesses and has been a blessing to our team!
The Princess Project recently held a “Springtime Mommy and Me Princess Tea” to raise money for Rally. One hundred percent of the proceeds were donated. We combined the earnings from this fundraiser with our previous earnings and presented our first check to Rally that totaled $1,400 for childhood cancer research.
Our first check presentation to Rally after our “Springtime Mommy and Me Princess Tea.”
I am so proud of The Princess Project team, and I cannot wait to raise more money for Rally! I appreciate how easy Rally makes it for people to customize their own fundraiser to raise money for childhood cancer research. The Rally team makes it so you can incorporate any interests and hobbies you have into your fundraiser. Seriously, you can start your own today!
I would love for The Princess Project team to start visiting hospitals soon, so we can really make a difference in children’s hearts. The Princess Project has been so much fun and very rewarding in many ways. Feel free to visit The Princess Project website at www.theprincessproject101.com to schedule a party or event, so the proceeds can go to Rally’s wonderful cause!