For One Enchanting Night, Promgoers' Worries Recede

NEW ORLEANS, May 12 -- In the end, like the storm before it, all the hubbub and the glare of the media receded, and the girls of Cabrini High School just danced.

Two hundred teenagers -- Hurricane Katrina victims all -- donned donated gowns, shoes and rhinestones Friday night to arrive at their prom, like a passel of swans, at a reception hall called Magnolia Plantation not far from downtown.

The theme was "Let the Good Times Roll," but, this being New Orleans, it was written in French on their prom T-shirts ( Laissez Les Bons Temps Roulez ).

They might have spent the last months living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer or sleeping on a friend's trundle bed far away from family, but this night, at least, they could be ordinary teenagers with a prom like everybody else's. That meant happy shrieks and hugs, candlelight and white tablecloths, music pouring from a disc jockey's booth, a long line at the photo booth, silver sandals that pinched and a date who might not have agreed to slow dance.

"I've been through so much and had to overcome a lot," said Kristin Ancar, a senior who has shared her home with two displaced classmates for the past seven months. "Putting on this dress made everything perfect."

She pulled up the skirt of her hot-pink strapless gown. It rustled.

"I couldn't ask for anything more," she said, her voice catching.

"This is, like, the last dance we'll ever have," said Blake DeLarge, whose home was flooded in the August storm. "I feel good. I can't believe someone from Washington touched these dresses and gave them to all of us. You know, people really do care."

The "someone from Washington" -- Marisa West, the Beltsville teenager whose dress drive collected 2,800 gowns -- was also at the prom, invited as guest of honor.

After Katrina, the students at Cabrini -- an all-girls Catholic school in the hard-hit Mid-City section of New Orleans -- didn't know whether they'd be able to have a prom at all, much less buy a fancy dress.

But West organized a dress drive. West's campaign succeeded beyond anyone's expectations, getting national attention and enough dresses to outfit students from 10 ravaged schools, plus accessories.

Greeting guests at the prom, Cabrini president Ardley Hanemann said: "It really is the jewel of their senior year."