Canton 'Mom Prom' Garners International Attention

Betsy Crapps is busy enough at work, helping organize confirmation activities. Since last week, she’s been in the media spotlight for organizing the Mom Prom.

“Good Morning America did a piece (set to air on Thursday) and The Early Show is coming out tonight. I’m not sure when that will be shown,” she said. On Friday, she was interviewed live on the nationally syndicated Gayle King radio show and has been sought after by bloggers Debbie Devine and Michelle Tingler of www.o-mama.com, as well as syndicated TV shows hosted by designer Nate Berkus and Wendy Williams and so many more Crapps gets a bit breathless trying to remember the names. She's had reminders from friends calling to tell her where the story has appeared, including in the United Kingdom's Daily Mail and three minutes and thirty seconds into comedian Seth Meyers' Saturday Night Live Weekend Update.

“I heard the story has been in 77 countries,” she said Monday afternoon in a phone interview. “(ABC's) Good Morning America did a piece on it with Juju Chang—everybody who met her wants her to be the new best friend. She’s so adorable. She was so, so sweet!”

Crapps, who lives in Canton and works at St. Thomas a’Becket as assistant director of faith formation, said the whole thing started years ago as an Oscar party prank.

“I have a friend who has an Oscar party every year, and we usually just watch wearing sweats and jeans,” she said. But then her mom came for a visit and, as usual, brought along some memorabilia: Betsy’s old prom dresses.

“She thought my daughter would want to play dress-up," Crapps said. “So this Oscar party was coming up, and my friend and I thought it would be so funny to show up in one of these prom dresses. I told one of my friends about it, and she wore an old bridesmaid dress—we didn’t tell anyone we were doing it, we just showed up. It went over really well, and after the party we decided we should have a ‘mom prom’ and wear our dresses, go to dinner and go out dancing. It was hilarious. Strangers were taking pictures of us at dinner.”

That moment led to Detroit News columnist Neal Rubin writing about the silliness, but the headline on his story, “something about putting cheesy old dresses to use for a good cause,” Crapps said, sparked another idea.

She and her friends organized a proper prom—well, a woman-only evening out—and decided to sell tickets to raise money for charity.

The first party, six years ago, sent $820 to the Wayne County Family Center in Westland, which helps the homeless. This year, more than 120 women attended the prom, paying $25 for advance tickets and $30 at the door. Some went out to a nice dinner before or afterward. Crapps said she joined more than 50 women at . Members of the nearby Knights of Columbus provided security at the dance itself.

“The guys joke that next year, they’re having T-shirts made that say ‘Security’ on them,” Crapps said, adding that she's been so busy with the groundswell of attention, the 2011's prom accounting is still not quite done, but “I know it’s over $3,000.”

The money will be divided between the church’s St. Vincent DePaul program, which aids about 50 families from the parish with basic needs, such as groceries and gas cards, and the HHT Foundation International, which researches a blood vessel disorder known by its scientific name, hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, as well as Osler-Weber-Rendu syndrome, after the doctors who identified it.

While the Mom Prom is growing every year, Crapps says the party can’t get much bigger. “We’re not looking to get 500 to ours,” she said. “Obviously our facility can’t hold that many people. What I’d like to see is other people organize their own Mom Proms, especially other places of worship, and raise money for charity.”

But she has another creative solution: National Mom Prom Night on April 29. She said it takes just five easy steps, available for free on the Mom Prom website.

Crapps said the reason this year's prom is getting so much attention is that, just before the Feb. 25 dance at St. Thomas a’Becket, she put in a call to The Associated Press, which assigned a reporter and photographer to cover it and sent the story to affiliate news organizations across the country.

"It must have been a slow news day," she said, laughing. The story went viral.

But the best part has nothing to do with fame. "It is getting e-mails from women and they are going to set up their own proms,” she said. “I’m hearing about how they want to help parents with strokes or Alzheimer’s disease, and kids with cancer. It’s all so inspiring.”

Can a guest spot with Oprah Winfrey be in Betsy Crapps’ future?

“I’m just waiting for the call from Oprah,” she said, laughing.

In the meantime, Crapps will head to New Hampshire soon to help her sister with a Mom Prom and promoting National Mom Prom Night on April 29.