WR kids encouraged to ‘dress the part’
WINDOW ROCK
Don’t dress as who you are now. Dress as who you want to be five years from now.
That was the message from two college student entrepreneurs who visited Window Rock High School Tuesday and somehow cajoled the teens out of their hoodies and into business attire.
Armed with piles of donated suit jackets and ties for the boys, and professional blouses and jackets for the girls, Ernest “Chris” Hill and Darnelle “DeeDee” Casimir of the Washington-based non-profit Soul of Nations helped students to “dress the part” — the “part” being whatever you want to be.
“When you learn to dress the part,” Hill told one boy, “you can go anywhere.”
At first the teens shyly riffled through the free clothing, tentatively removing their hoodies and poking their arms through the sleeves of suit jackets like they had never done it before — which, some of them confessed, they hadn’t.
But when they saw the transformation in their classmates, more and more joined in. In the stylish jackets and ties, which Casimir and Hill had to teach some of the boys how to tie, the kids seemed to stand a little straighter.
“When you look good,” explained Hill, “you feel confident.”
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Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow