Volunteer Diaries: Fresh Start Surgical Gifts

Prom is a rite of passage for high schoolers, but a flashy new dress can cost hundreds of dollars. The Princess Project helps girls cut costs while promoting fashion sustainability. The nonprofit collects new and gently used formal dresses and accessories throughout the year, then when prom season rolls around, launches pop-up boutiques where girls can shop for their dream dress at no cost. The only criteria is they have to be a high school student who’s going to prom. 

The Princess Project started in San Francisco in 2002 with a small dress drive. The movement grew exponentially over the years, and expanded to San Diego in 2008. Today, it’s headquartered at Parkway Plaza in El Cajon and has chapters in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Sonoma. 

“We really want to celebrate teens, make them feel good about themselves, and save them some money because it costs a lot to go to prom. This is one way that we can help alleviate the cost,” says Karen Martin-Spellerberg, corporate board chairman and head of the San Diego chapter. “There’s no financial requirement to come get a dress with us because we are all about everybody being equal and having the same opportunity.” 

The experience is more than just picking out a dress, says Martin-Spellerberg. The Princess Project works to create a bubble of inclusiveness and confidence, where all shapes and sizes are celebrated, and all comments are positive.

In the months leading up to prom season, teens can book an hour-long appointment at the Parkway Plaza location to try on dresses and accessories, which they get to keep. Volunteers act as personal shoppers, curating an experience unique to each kid. This year, the Princess Projects also brought dresses to eight library branches throughout San Diego County to reach girls who couldn’t make it to the main event. 

Because the Princess Project relies on donations, they often do not receive enough dresses in “fringe sizes” (00-2 and 14 and up), so they hold fundraising events to purchase new dresses in those specific sizes to maintain an inclusive range. Its signature $5 Dress Sale Fundraiser event will take place on May 30-31 at Parkway Plaza, where non-prom dresses (cocktail, casual, business) donated throughout the year are sold for a minimum $5 donation per dress. All proceeds from this fundraiser are used to purchase the understocked sizes. 

“We’ve got dress drop off sites throughout San Diego County and people sometimes will donate dresses that are non-prom—sometimes they’re cocktail, casual, summer, business. So, what happens is when we are done with the season, we flip our dress store and we put out all of the non-prom dresses,” says Martin-Spellerberg. “People can come shop and get as many dresses as they want and 100 percent of the proceeds go toward us purchasing dresses in the sizes we don’t have enough of.” 

The Princess Project also relies heavily on volunteers, including teen ambassadors, the latter who meet monthly, help organize the store, work outreach tables, and host a fashion show to help spread the word to their fellow students that the dresses are premium-quality and “ready to wear, beautiful and amazing.” 

“It’s all about kindness and making kids feel good about themselves,” says Martin-Spellerberg.

June 4: St. Germaine Children’s Charity Star Bright Awards Dinner

St. Germaine Children’s Charity will host its annual grant awards dinner at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. The grant funds that will be donated to local agencies that work to end child abuse were raised at various St. Germaine Children’s Charity fundraisers and events throughout the year. 

June 6: Senior Prom: Forever Young

Help San Diego seniors age gracefully at Senior Prom: Forever Young, a fundraiser for Meals on Wheels San Diego County. The retro school dance-themed gala at the Kona Kai San Diego Resort will help the nonprofit continue to deliver daily nutritious meals and friendly visits to local seniors.

June 12-14: Walk Against Human Trafficking

San Diego nonprofit GenerateHope and international charity Freedom Challenge will host a 45-mile, three-day walk from Oceanside to Coronado to help combat human trafficking. Funds raised will go toward Freedom Challenge’s work around the world and GenerateHope’s local programs that serve survivors of sex trafficking. 

June 13: Wildcoast’s Baja Bash 

Roughly 300 guests will gather at a private residence in Solana Beach for bites prepared by San Diego’s top sustainable chefs, along with fine wine, craft beer, and small batch mezcal and tequila to support coastal conservation in the U.S. and Mexico. Funds raised at Wildcoast’s Baja Bash will help expand its programs in 2026 and beyond.

June 20: CYAC Battle of the Badges

Local law enforcement, first responders, and military personnel will face off in a boxing match aboard the USS Midway Museum to raise money for the Community Youth Athletic Center. Now in its 21st year, the Battle of the Badges supports CYAC’s boxing programs for underprivileged youth.

Ray’s Tennis doesn’t look like much from the outside. Never has. It’s just a green box with cloudy windows in Hillcrest, just steps away from a McDonald’s on University Avenue. But for nearly 60 years, this place has been the genesis for three generations of San Diego tennis dreams. Head inside, and you enter one of the tennis world’s great cornucopias.

For years, there was a tennis court behind the store, where owner Bob Ray gave countless lessons. It was like a racket-sport speakeasy; most customers didn’t realize the court existed unless Bob or his wife, Hiroko, guided them through the back door of the shop. Eventually they converted it into a half-court indoors—where a patron might take a racket for a few trial thwacks, trying to avoid rounders of tennis clothes that shared the space.

The shop is an abridged living history. Relics hang from the ceiling: a model of an old metal racket used by fiery lefthander Jimmy Connors in his heyday, and a version of the wooden Donnay that Björn Borg wielded on his way to five consecutive Wimbledon championships from 1976 to 1980.

And just inside the front door is Hiroko eternally stringing new rackets, carefully threading and adjusting the tension of the polyester strings, back and forth, until she has the entire racket head strung.

“I worked seven days a week—five days off in the year,” she says. “My hearing is still good. Physically, I’m as good as I was. Working seven days a week, standing all day. I’m mentally healthier than most people.”

The racket stringing is an operation she does up to 20 times a day—and one that, in some ways, resembles the thread work done by her father decades ago, when he ran a tailor’s shop in Japan.

Hiroko, now 81, was born in the city of Yokosuka at the tail end of the WWII. Her family evacuated to the countryside to escape the bombing raids, and she remembers growing up surrounded by rice fields and mountains. It was in Japan that Hiroko met Bob, a third-generation San Diegan, in the late 1960s, when he was stationed there with the Navy.

Among his possessions at the time was a tennis racket. Inherited from his father, who died when Bob was 11, this racket changed the trajectory of his life: He played constantly, filling up his school days, afternoons, and evenings on the tennis court. He was one of the highest-ranked teen players in the state, and he dreamed of joining the international tournament circuit after his stint in the Navy. But—speaking plainly—he acknowledges that he wasn’t quite good enough to compete with the best of the best. So, instead, he modified his dreams. He and Hiroko returned to San Diego in 1968, and he took a job as the club pro at Morley Field. By their mid-20s, in lieu of touring the world on the tennis circuit, the couple was running the club’s tennis store.

They spent 11 years at Morley Field, which at the time was one of the city’s tennis epicenters, hosting major tournaments for juniors. When the city handed over the store lease to a wealthier applicant, the Rays took over the property on University Avenue and moved in their tennis gear. They have been there ever since—through the McEnroe and Navratilova and Evert eras; the rise of Agassi and Sampras and Graf; the reign of the Williams sisters; the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic rivalry; and into the Alcaraz era. In the near-half century they have sold tennis gear in Hillcrest, the Rays became beloved anchors of the neighborhood’s business community, symbols of stability in an ever-changing environment.

At 84, Bob is still lean and, in his Lacoste tracksuit and Adidas cap, remains every bit the club pro. Like Hiroko, he comes to the store every day—though sometimes, if he is playing tennis in the morning, he might arrive a little later.

But time has started to take its toll. His hearing isn’t what it used to be, and the aging process is revealing itself to be true. And much to the disappointment of their loyal clientele, San Diego’s “First Couple of Tennis” is retiring, a milestone that marks the end of an extraordinarily long chapter in the city’s tennis history.

But Ray and Hiroko didn’t sell the building to a developer for condos or to a big-box retailer looking to open a boutique outpost. Determined that Ray’s should remain a tennis temple, they have negotiated a sale to a former employee who wants to continue the Rays’ legacy.

As of this writing, Hiroko and Bob remain in charge, Hiroko stringing rackets, Bob sharing his expertise about new gear. As much as they love what they’ve built, their hope is to move on soon.

For Hiroko, the prospect of retirement is bittersweet. “What am I going to do?” she asks. “Am I going to be ok? I never had a boring life. Always busy. Business first. I’m so involved in the business—because I didn’t want to fail.”

She looks around her store as she continues stringing. For her, the gladiatorial nature of tennis has always been a metaphor for how to succeed in life. “People have to have a drive,” she says. “You can’t just quit because you lose to so-and-so. Tennis players have that mindset.”

She pauses to talk about all the people who have come through the store’s door over the decades, and the relationships she has built with them. “It’s wonderful to have a great customer. That’s probably the reason I lasted this long.”

For young adults transitioning out of foster care, housing instability is often among the greatest challenges they face. This, along with underemployment or unemployment and a sudden lack of support and resources, significantly increases the likelihood that they will ultimately slip through the cracks. 

Walden Family Services, a 50-year-old nonprofit that helps find stable, supportive home environments for local youth in foster care, is addressing the problem head-on through transitional housing programs that integrate financial literacy, case management, and life-skills development to help young adults learn how to live independently. 

“It was pretty much a foster care to homelessness pipeline—or prison,” says Teresa Stivers, Walden Family Services CEO. In response, Walden Family Services launched an initiative called Independent Futures to help clients between 18 and 21 acclimate to their newfound independence. There’s also an extended care program for those ages 22 to 24. 

Clients are provided furnished housing, food, and job training, and learn basic life skills, like how to cook and grocery shop, save money, pay bills, and budget. They pay rent that’s deposited into a savings account and matched by Walden Family Services. Clients are also required to work, attend school, or do a combination of both for 40 hours a week. 

Roughly 90 percent of existing clients live in safe, sustainable housing, 83 percent maintain stable employment, and 83 percent leave the program with significant savings.   

“There’s a reason why every young person in this country can be on their parents’ health benefits until 26. Research shows that’s about how long it takes for someone to fully take off—and that’s for somebody who grew up with their parents and maybe went to college,” says Stivers. “As you can imagine, it’s more difficult for someone who went from family to family, school to school, exiting at 18 without a diploma.” 

The program’s success stories exemplify its impact, Stivers says. Clients have gone on to become entrepreneurs, advocates, scholars, and loving parents who break the cycle of child abuse and neglect. Many also want to give back and help other kids in the foster care system. Walden Family Services is working to develop an alumni program and build a mentoring component into its transitional program. 

“We’ve done all kinds of peer mentoring, peer therapy, and have a lot of staff members who grew up in our program or have lived experience, and it’s been really impactful. So now we want to formalize that program for our alumni and give our graduates an opportunity to help other folks,” Stivers says. 

Walden is also looking ahead, focusing on expanding housing partnerships, strengthening prevention efforts, and increasing community involvement to meet growing demand. However, rising housing costs and funding constraints are taking their toll on nonprofits like Walden Family Services. 

“It’s challenging for all of us,” Stivers says. “We are all still trying to provide the best care that we can with the limited dollars.”  

Those considering ways to help can make a monetary donation to the organization or attend a fundraising event like the Walden Family Services’ “There’s No Place Like Home” gala on April 30 at The Thursday Club. The organization is currently looking for volunteers to host activities or training sessions for clients, help out in the office, serve on the board, or participate in holiday drives. If you’re a local property owner, they’re also looking for partnerships with those willing to rent reasonably priced apartments to their clients. 

“There are so many things that people can do to make an investment in their community,” Stivers says. “Many people don’t realize that there are children in their own backyard who are going hungry, who are sad and scared and lonely, and that they can make a difference. We hope that people will do that so we can all benefit.”  

On April 11, San Diego–based nonprofit U-GO hosted a fundraiser at Cucina 2051 in Carlsbad to support women in low-income countries pursuing higher education. The U-GO San Diego Wine Dinner raised money to fund university scholarships for young women from underserved communities around the world.

Photo Credit: Madilynn Saige Photo