The Cinderella Project

The Challenge

Every year, students in Lethbridge skip their graduation. Not because they don’t want to go. Because they can’t afford to.

A dress costs hundreds. A suit rental isn’t cheap. When your family is struggling to keep food on the table, prom becomes a luxury you quietly opt out of. You miss the photos. You miss the dancing. You miss the milestone that everyone else gets to share.

MyCityCare runs the Cinderella Project to close that gap. They collect donated formal wear and set up a boutique where students can shop with a personal stylist. No bins. No lines. A real retail experience, just without the price tag.

The video needed to speak to three audiences at once. Donors who needed to see what quality of formal wear was worth giving. Students who needed to believe the experience would be dignified, not humiliating. Sponsors who needed proof this was a programme worth funding.

One video. Three sceptical audiences. And a name that promised a fairy tale.

The Solution

We produced a documentary that captured abundance, not deprivation.

Non-profit video has a long history of showing suffering to trigger guilt. It works in the short term. But it reinforces the shame that keeps people from asking for help in the first place. If the video made the Cinderella Project look like charity, students would stay away.

We went the other direction.

Abundance, Not Need

The video opens on racks of colourful dresses. Sparkling accessories. Suits hung by size and style. It looks like a high-end boutique because that’s what it is. The first message to every audience: this is not a handout. This is a shop.

The problem is introduced through the voices of the organisers, not the students. Executive Director Jen Tribble explained the gap — students choosing to skip graduation because they felt they couldn’t participate. The heroes of the story are the volunteers, the personal shoppers, the community members who donate. The narrative centres on generosity, not need.

Privacy as a Production Decision

The students using the Cinderella Project are minors facing financial hardship. Showing their faces could expose them to stigma at school. It could reinforce the shame the project is designed to eliminate.

We filmed details instead of faces. Hands adjusting a tie. Feet stepping into heels. The fabric of a dress against a mirror. The twirl. The moment of recognition. You feel the emotion without identifying the individual. The students are present in the footage. But they’re protected.

The boutique is a crowded, intimate space. Students are nervous. Volunteers are busy. We used compact, stabilised gear that could disappear into the room — floating through racks of dresses without disrupting the experience. Discretion meant students felt safe. Safe students meant authentic footage.

The colour grade pushed warm tones. Golds and ambers. The visual language of a fairy tale, grounded in the real textures of Lethbridge.

The Result

The video has served as a recruitment tool for donors, students, and volunteers every year since.

In 2023, the Lethbridge chapter served 57 students. The inventory, entirely donated by the community, now rivals a commercial store. The programme has expanded to Medicine Hat, Taber, and Okotoks.

Jen Tribble told us that after the video launched, students started reaching out earlier. The footage answered the question they were afraid to ask: will this be embarrassing? The answer, visually, was no. It looks like shopping. It looks like fun.

For sponsors, the video professionalised MyCityCare’s image. It showed that this wasn’t a scrappy grassroots effort. It was a sophisticated operation with high standards and clear impact.

Dignity isn’t just a word for mission statements. It’s a production decision. Every choice — the angles, the lighting, the pacing — was designed to make the students look like customers, not recipients. To make the volunteers look like stylists, not saviours.

The Cinderella story is about transformation. But the real transformation isn’t the dress. It’s the feeling that you belong at the ball in the first place.

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