Fray to Continue to Grow the Organization and Provide Valuable Services for Low-Income Women Re-entering the Workplace

Hempstead, NY, November 18, 2003 -- Ingrid Fray, who founded Dress for Success Nassau County last year, has been named as the organization’s Executive Director. As Executive Director, she will continue to develop strategic partnerships and generate corporate sponsorships with retailers and other service providers throughout Long Island, and to help the organization continue to achieve its goal of providing local low-income women with interview/career clothing and workplace reentry preparation.
Dress for Success Nassau County is an affiliate of the national Dress for Success program, the largest provider of interview appropriate suiting for women in the world. With offices in more than 75 cities across the country, including nine overseas, the national organization serves more than 45,000 women.

Fray founded the Nassau County affiliate in October 2002, and has rapidly grown the organization to reach out to a large number of low-income women on Long Island to help them make tailored transitions into the work force. Dress for Success Nassau County is the only organization on Long Island that provides comprehensive services for women in need of assistance in order to re-enter the workplace, providing women with interview suits, haircuts/styling/washing, manicures, waxing, cosmetics, resume writing, interview skill building workshops and a professional women’s group.

“The Dress for Success program we have created on Long Island has been met with great enthusiasm, both from local women who have been helped tremendously by what we offer, as well as area retailers who have been so generous in wanting to contribute to our cause of helping women get back on their feet and become financially secure,““ says Fray. “Not only are we helping local women make it easier to re-enter the workforce by giving them the interview clothing that they need to embark on their job searches, but we provide them with total makeovers and skill-building workshops that enable women to feel confident that that they will be able to get -- and keep -- the jobs they need. ”

Having spent more than 10 years working in the corporate sector, Fray brings a great deal of business experience to the position of Executive Director of Dress for Success Nassau County. In addition, an early experience where she found herself unemployed and struggling to support herself and her child also gave her tremendous insight into the challenges that many women face while job hunting. Her personal experience, coupled with her business expertise, led her to apply for an affiliate office of the national Dress for Success program. The year she applied, Dress for Success received more than 1,400 applications from individuals who wanted to start local affiliates. Of those 1,400, the national organization approved only four affiliates -- with Fray’s application for the Nassau County affiliate one of the four approved.

Dress for Success Nassau County is currently located at 120 Greenwich Street in Hempstead. For more information about the organization and how to participate in the program, or to donate clothing or money, visit www.dressforsuccess.org, or call 516-292-3900.

About Dress for Success Nassau County
Dress for Success Nassau County, founded in October 2002, is an affiliate that aids low-income women of Nassau and Western Suffolk County, Long Island make tailored transitions into the work force. The only organization on Long Island to provide interview suits, haircuts/styles/wash, manicures, waxing, cosmetics, resume writing, interview skills and a professional women’s group, Dress for Success Nassau County reaches out to a large number of women on Long Island who are in need of these serves and helps them to build careers and become financially secure.

About Dress for Success - National
Founded in 1996, Dress for Success is the country’s largest provider of interview clothing and workplace reentry preparation to low-income women. Nancy Lublin founded the organization with a $5,000 inheritance from her great-grandfather, an immigrant peddler in New York’s garment district. Lublin decided that she would use the money to honor her great-grandfather by highlighting his remarkable work ethic; she contacted three nuns in Spanish Harlem, plus a social worker and a domestic violence attorney. Together, these women created Dress for Success New York. Dress for Success is the largest provider of interview appropriate suiting for women in the world, with offices in over 75 cities across the country, including nine overseas, serving more than 45,000 women.