Dress for Success Houston helps women look professional, feel empowered

KATY, TX (KTRK) -- With so many people looking for jobs, finding opportunities and preparing for interviews is more important than ever. The non-profit Dress for Success Houston helps women do exactly that.

Since 1998, Dress for Success Houston has served more than 45,000 women and some 60,000 children.

For Dress for Success client Sarai Embaye, balancing a busy career and teenage children in the age of COVID-19 is no easy task. But the Katy mom is grateful that she has a successful career and a happy family, things she worked very hard for.

"I've had a couple of obstacles, being a teenage mother and also being from the foster care system," said Sarai.

Though she struggled through those obstacles and graduated from college, the challenges just kept coming.

"I didn't know what my life would look like when I got laid off," she said. "I was scared. I had two young children to take care of and I was just in a very vulnerable situation."

Enter Dress for Success Houston, the organization that provides professional clothing and interviewing skills to women applying for jobs. The non-profit helped her land a position at an IT company, but Sarai soon found the group offers so much more. Dress for Success offers 20-plus programs that focus on women's individual needs and offer an important human connection.

"The staff, they are very supportive," said Sarai. "They're very sweet and kind. You don't meet people like that every day, where they genuinely care about your well-being and they see the best in you."

After earning a scholarship for a Rice certification program, Sarai continues to move forward in her career and her life, inspiring her own 15- year-old daughter London.

"My daughter is over here rooting for me in the background and she's always been my number one cheerleader," said Sarai. "I want to inspire my children by showing them perseverance and, you know, anything is possible if you continue to work hard and do your very best."

But Sarai is also now showing other children in the foster system just how bright their futures can be too.

"You're the example, you're what they could be in the future," said Sarai's daughter, London. "They can have the strength to not give up and they can succeed too."

Dress for Success is holding a drive-thru event this Saturday, October 17, to raise funds. Additionally, Dress for Success is holding an online raffle for a Pelton Bike+ valued at over $3,000, with the drawing set for Tuesday, October 20th. You can enter the drawing here.

Visit dfshouston.org for more ways to help Dress for Success Houston!