prom project bust

over the years the girls and i have collected quite a few formal dressed that we don't really know what to do with. it's not like good will won't take a poofy bridesmaid's dress but you kind of want your special dress to be someone else's special dress too. anyway, after a few years of talking about it, g and i finally got off our asses and donated them. she found an organization in north oc affiliated with the ywca that would take them.

i thought this seems like a pretty great project so i wanted to volunteer with them too, so before dropping off our dresses i called them first. i left a detailed message and didn't hear back for a week. ... called back again and this time she picked up. talked to her for a bit about donating and volunteering. she took down my name, number, email address and said she'd pass the info along. i told her i was waiting on dresses from my friends still and would come by her office in a week or two to drop stuff off. she said great.

a week later i'd collected dresses and accessories from t and annie and took photos of our stuff. i called her back and left a message to say i'd be by in a couple days on tuesday morning at 11am (or whenever it was) to drop off my stuff and i hoped to see her then. this was mid december.

on tuesday i showed up when i said i was going to, and of course she wasn't there. didn't leave a note for me either, which i thought was pretty rude. her office people said that she sometimes didn't come in but that i could wait for her for a bit. i decided to do so since i had given her advance notice that i was coming in. hoped she was running late or whatever. waited about 15 minutes when her co-worker came by and told me that she had missed an email from her earlier saying that she would not be in. ...

after a day or two i called again and left a message saying that i'd brought the stuff by and was still waiting to hear back about volunteering. the day i went, her co-worker gave me her business card so after another couple weeks, now in january, i emailed her reminding her that i'd talked to her, dropped stuff off, and still hadn't heard back about volunteering. "At the very least I'd like to work at Boutique Day, though I would need to know the date first." a full two weeks later she writes back apologizing for the delays and says she'll submit my name the volunteering committee (tho shouldn't she have already done so?). she doesn't tell me boutique day date or give me anyone else's contact info tho that's the obvious next step. i responded to her two days later with my schedule availability and ask again for boutique day date. i don't hear back.

the email i wrote her was on jan 24 and i've been wondering about the project ever since. so on march 15th i wrote another email:

I felt like I needed to tell you that I am very disappointed with you and your organization. I've contacted you multiple times through varied mediums about volunteering and have not heard back. Being part of a non-profit, fully volunteer-run organization myself, I'm surprised that you would not take more care in handling prospective volunteers who have repeatedly shown an interest in your project. Although yours is still a cause I believe in, I do wish I had donated my and my friends' dresses and accessories to someone else.  

and wouldn't you believe it, but two days later she actually wrote back:

The YWCA of North Orange County is a very small grassroot organization with a very small staff. I am sorry about the inconveniences of the missing replys and apologize. Please feel free to donate to other organizations such as Orangewood. They have a prom project too. The YWCA's contact for the Prom Project is C----- M----- should you want to continue your interest in volunteering for the Prom Project. We wish you the best in your future endeavors. 

i haven't bothered to reply because who the fuck cares anymore and she is clearly an idiot who doesn't know  how to read properly, doesn't know spelling, definitions, common courtesy, how to treat volunteers, or any number of other things! and i'm still even more upset because after all this i still don't know when boutique day is, and i don't have anyone else's contact info to find out when boutique day is even if i were still interested in volunteering! goddamn i wish i'd given the dresses to someone, anyone, else!

i'm just sooo disappointed because oddly enough, this isn't even the first organization i've contacted about donating prom dresses. a couple years ago i had found another organization in mid-oc that i emailed a couple times and never heard back from either. it's really strange to because i've contacted other organizations about other donation drives and volunteering and stuff and have NEVER run into any problems. gah! no moral of the story. just wanted to vent.

(no website links to help people save face or whatever, but you really want to know who not to work with, email me)