Detroit's Perfect Cleaners Rescues Prom Dresses for Junior ROTC Ball

Gary and Song Cha Heflin had questions two years ago when they started collecting gently used formal prom dresses for Detroit girls from low-income families.

The owners of Perfect Cleaners, 19500 W. McNichols Road, wondered about the quality of the potential donations that they would receive. They also were curious about whether young ladies would perceive the prom dresses to be hand-me-downs of second-class quality.

To their surprise, the venture has been a big success. The couple received and recycled more than 10 prom dresses two years ago, and the number soared to 80 last year.

This spring, it's time for a third go-round. Girls receiving the gowns will attend Detroit Public Schools' Junior ROTC Ball on Friday, May 7, at Lowell Park Manor in Livonia.

Gary Heflin is partial to the Reserve Officers Training Corps because his 20-year Army career came to a close in 1991, and because Perfect Cleaners has a contract with the school district for cleaning ROTC uniforms.

"We would go to the schools to pick up the uniforms to clean them," he explains, "and we would encounter young ladies saying, 'I'm not going to the ROTC Ball because I don't have the money for a dress.' We decided that this is our way of giving something back.

"We either fit the girls at their schools, or they can come to the store to be fitted. I clean the dresses, and Song Cha does the alterations. We have been fortunate in that the dresses we receive have been in very, very good shape. Most are 1, 2 or maybe 3 years old and have only been worn once, or twice at the very most."

Song Cha Heflin keeps a DVD of the students who have received her handiwork posing with big smiles. At times, she has diligently invested more than an hour in getting a single gown just right.

"The girls do look so nice," she says. "It can be a lot of work, but we have said we are going to do this, and so this is what we do."

The couple met in 1983 when Gary Heflin was stationed in Taegu, South Korea, about 80 miles south of Seoul. A neighbor of Song Cha's introduced them. They married in 1985.

Gary Heflin was raised in Front Royal, Va., about 70 miles from Washington, D.C. When he retired from the Army, however, the couple moved to Detroit because his wife's brother had moved to the Motor City. They started their business in 1994.

"We found out that the people of Detroit are really special, really different," he says. "We love being here in Detroit. It's a great place to be, other than having the bad economic situation that the whole state is in."

As another contribution to Detroit's younger generation, the Heflin couple is cleaning more than 300 uniforms for Detroit Public Schools' All City High School Marching Band, which is being revived after a six-year hiatus.

They are requesting that anyone who wishes to donate a gown for the Junior ROTC Ball should stop by the store before the final week of April. The phone number is 313-794-3083.