The 98th Cinderella Ball, one of the oldest debutante charity balls in the country, was held last Sunday at the Carnegie Museum and Music Hall Foyer in Oakland as a benefit for the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium.

The Cinderella Ball was founded in 1926 as a way to introduce young ladies to polite society, but it has come a long way from its debutante roots.

While some misrepresent the event as an elitist fete for the privileged, its mission is to encourage young women to embrace their talents and direct their energies for the good of their communities.

“We are about preparing young women to be future leaders and givers,” said Jamie Lanier, president of the Cinderella Women’s Committee. “We want them to think about other people and think about giving back.”

She remembered her Cinderella Ball in 1974.

“It was such a wonderful experience,” she said, adding that it made her want to continue to be involved long after.

Lanier was instrumental in changing the ball in the 1980s.

“It used to start at 10 p.m. at night, and you would go around to all these little dinners and finally a presentation, and then, they would serve a little breakfast,” she recalled.

“It was not a family event.” 

Lanier decided to have a real ball and sit-down dinner at one venue, the Omni William Penn Hotel in Downtown. Bandleader Jack Purcell always provided the music and his son, Rick Purcell, continues the tradition.

At that time, they were still holding the event at Christmastime. In the 1990s, the Cinderella Ball was moved to the end of January. It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that the winter fete became a summer soiree.

“Because of COVID, we had to have it outside, and so [we] moved it to June at the Allegheny Country Club in Sewickley for two years,” explained Lanier.

The ball had always been affiliated with St. Margaret Hospital, which was the beneficiary. When UPMC absorbed the hospital into its growing network in 1999, it did not continue the relationship with the Cinderella Ball.

“We were not going to let this tradition disappear,” Lanier said. 

So along with Becky Keevican, Liz Sweeney and Cathy Baker, she created the Cinderella Women’s Committee and added both its  community service requirement and the Leadership Forum for Young Women.

Candidates are required to do a minimum of 30 hours of volunteer work and participate in the Leadership Forum, a yearlong program focused on personal development and volunteerism. The program includes guest speakers and the Myers-Briggs personality test.

“We had a woman explain branding and how to apply it to yourself, and doing bonding excursions such as going as a group to gym with an instructor,” explained Lanier.

Eight young ladies make up the 2024 class. They are all going to be freshman in college in the fall.

They are: Alexa Marie Ong; Isla Abrams; Elliott Scheri; Kennedy Barron; Chelsea Hartman; Annalese Bartolacci; Gabrielle Hodas; and Elise Deibler.

Traditions that may seem outdated speak to the event’s history and the fairy-tale atmosphere of the evening. 

One young lady is randomly chosen as Cinderella by Prince Charming as he pulls her name out of a ceramic pumpkin. This year’s Prince Charming was Charles Leonard Deaktor, who attends Emory University in Atlanta.

He was chosen by the women’s committee and was accompanied by other young men dressed in white tie and tails. They kneel along the length of the presentation walk as the young women are announced. The debutantes’ fathers usually escort them to their seats and dance with them following the presentations.

The candidates had two practices at the Pittsburgh Field Club, and the final practice was at the Carnegie Museum.

Hartman, a Fox Chapel resident, is the first in her family to be presented at the Cinderella Ball.

“I really learned a lot from my brother having done it, because he was on the floor committee,” she said. “I also saw a bunch of my friends at Shady Side Academy doing it.”

In addition to volunteering at the zoo, she worked at the Knead Community Cafe in New Kensington.

“The prices are low, but if you can’t pay they just ask you to come back and help out for a couple hours,” Hartman explained.

At the zoo, she enjoyed volunteering at the ZooBoo event near Halloween.

“Kids would come in and we would help them make crafts and play games with them,” she recalled. 

“I liked interacting and seeing the impact of what we were doing. I didn’t need to make money, so I wanted to give my time.”

Hodas, who lives in O’Hara, completed 87 hours of service and was awarded this year’s scholarship. Together, the eight Cinderellas compiled 300 volunteer hours.

“I really liked getting to know all the other debutante girls,” said Hodas. “I really bonded with the girls, and I really do like them all.”

As it turned out, the ZooBoo was nearly everyone’s favorite volunteer job at the zoo.

“It was nice to see how many people would show up to ZooBoo and to meet other people in the community,” Hodas said.

 “We wrapped pipe cleaners around coffee filters to create little bats and the kids could color on them,” said Scheri, a Fox Chapel resident.

“It was fun to see everybody in their little costumes as they went around to get candy.”

Scheri comes from a long line of Cinderella debutantes.

“My mother [Dedee Wilson] was presented at the Cinderella Ball, and a lot of her family has done it,” she said.

“I think I have relatives going back to 1937 who did it.”

Her mother found the programs from earlier Cinderella Balls, including hers. 

“It was really cool to see the dresses especially from the ’80s, when they had all those poofy sleeves,” Scheri said. 

She and Hodas had fond memories of their workout at a gym, where they were joined by the Cinderella candidates that will be presented in 2025. 

“I thought that was nice, and all the events gave us a chance to meet girls from different schools all around the city,” Scheri said.

“It was good to get involved in the community and give back to the zoo, which I went to when I was little.”

She joined the other Cinderella candidates filling backpacks for Urban Impact, which serves youth and families on the North Side by offering programs in athletics, education and the performing arts.

The Cinderellas also noted the Leadership Forum.

“Having this community to connect back to is good, because I don’t know where I will end up in the future,” said Hartman. “This experience helped to make some good connections.”

Patricia Sheridan: psheridan@post-gazette.com

First Published: June 19, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: June 20, 2024, 2:16 a.m.