At Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., first-year student Ella Horner said her budget would be significantly impacted by the need to buy professional clothing.
“It definitely would take a significant hit, being a first-year university student I have a tight budget, there’s not exactly a lot of room for expensive clothes,” she said in an interview on Monday.
Fellow student Alyssa Horner agrees.
“It would mean a lot considering when you’re a university student there’s a lot of finances to take care of,” she said. “Everything’s expensive with rent and gas and everything else on top of that and tuition of course.”
Cynthia Dyck, who graduated from the university’s Commerce program in 2021, got the idea for the new Dress to Impress program from a friend.
She now administers the program which launched on Thursday.
“We noticed that there was this expectation to have professional attire for presentations, for conferences, for interviews and there were times when students didn’t have access to stores with this professional attire or the funds to (purchase clothes),” she said Monday.
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Students can donate clothes to the program using a bin located in the student centre.
Those looking for professional clothes to borrow or keep can try them on in a small room in the basement of the on-campus chapel, after which they sign the clothes out using a form.
Five people had already signed out clothing from the program on Monday morning.
Students can even request certain items of clothing if they don’t find what they need, and someone from the program will purchase it.
The program is funded with a $42,000 grant from the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour.
“(Those funds will help) run this program over four years,” Dyck said.
She is hoping to develop it into a self-sustaining program before the funding runs out.
“Right now we’re in the pilot phase but once we have it launched we’re going to pivot into ‘how do we make it sustainable,'” she said.
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