A room for second chances

Rummaging through the Dress for Success Greater Orlando facility in Winter Park, Renita Hunt checks the quality of the shirts hanging from the racks. 

Hunt, board president for the local affiliate of the nonprofit, likes to make sure everything is in order for the organization’s clients.

The walls of the small, single-room space are lined with donated dress shirts, shoes, skirts and everything in-between.

But it’s more than just a room of clothes — it’s a room of second chances.

“We want to continue to be the source of women empowerment in the Greater Orlando community — Winter Park, but also Greater Orlando,” Hunt said. “We want to be the go-to organization that all women come to and say, ‘You know what? I need a mentor.’ Total encompassing sisterhood.”

The organization, which has been in Winter Park for nearly 16 years, helps women from low-income backgrounds who are trying to find work. It’s a private process, with many of the clients coming from difficult situations, while others prefer not to have people know that they use the program.

Once an appointment is scheduled, clients visit the facility for an hourlong session that Hunt describes as “playing dress up.” The outfit they choose that day is given to them as interview attire.

The best part, besides the free interview outfit, is once a client gets a job, they then go back to the facility and get a week’s worth of work clothes.

“The biggest hang up, once you get a job is, ‘What am I going to wear? I had that nice interview suit, but maybe it’s casual, and I really don’t have good work appropriate casual wear,’ so we help them with that,’” Hunt said.

Even if a client does not get a job immediately, the organization provides career-readiness and job-retention programs to help people find work and keep it.

The assistance and help offered by the organization, which has come to help so many women in the area, came dangerously close to ending about five years ago when money got tight. Luckily, for clients such as Winter Garden resident Shirley Williams and Orlando resident Victoria Brantley, it didn’t happen.

Williams’ story, like so many others, started from a hard moment in life.

“The impact that it 

has made on our 

clients, it just brings 

you to tears — we are making a difference.”

 

— Renita Hunt

After finishing school and a six-year stint in the U.S. Navy, Shirley was recruited by Disney to be a manager — setting off to Florida with her husband and children.

During her four-and-a-half-year stint as manager, her fourth daughter, Jalah, was born three-and-a-half months early. Maintaining her job became incredibly difficult.

Jalah required a special medical daycare, but at the time, there were only two around — one in Sanford and another in Hunter’s Creek. 

“It became very difficult, not just financially, but (it) was just putting a strain on the family time-wise, emotionally, everything,” Williams said. “I lived over by the Windermere and Lake Buena Vista area, so I was right there at my job — I was having to go every day to Hunter’s Creek, then to work at Disney, back to Hunter’s Creek, then home.” 

Between having to drive all over the map and the long hours at Disney, Williams decided she had to put family first and quit in 2008. While her husband maintains his manager job at Disney, Williams has worked a slew of odd jobs, so she could spend most of her time with her daughter.

Now, with Jalah healthy and about to start the sixth grade, and her other four children in school, Williams has been trying to find steady work, and Dress for Success has been helping to prepare her along the way.

“You know what to say, you know how to act appropriately, you know the proper handshake, and now you look like new money,” Williams said. “You have this confidence that, ‘Hey, I’m ready for this job. I know what you have to offer and I am here to show you that I am a great fit for you to have.’ That is what Dress for Success does.”

While Williams continues her search for full-time work, Brantley has enjoyed a career that has been going on for three years. She was first introduced to the organization during her final semester of college when she was looking at doing an internship but had no real interview-worthy attire.

As a single parent and a college student, life was hard for Brantley who was trying her best to make ends meet.

After going in for her session, Brantley was dressed and taught how to prepare herself for the upcoming interview with Orange County Corrections — and it worked.

Since finishing her internship with OCC, Brantley has worked at Goodwill for three years. She goes to the correctional facility and teaches different life skills — including interviewing and résumé writing — to those reentering into society to help them to get readjusted to life outside of prison.

Her job and dreams of bettering herself come from grit and determination, but the help she has received from Dress For Success has played a big role in where she is today.

“They’re all for the every day modern woman … who wants to get in there and try to make a career path for herself,” Brantley said. 

That kind of response is exactly what Hunt and those at Dress for Success want to hear.

“It really just grips your heart,” Hunt said. “The impact that it has made on our clients, it just brings you to tears — we are making a difference.”