Dress For Success was founded by Nancy Lublin
in 1997 and has expanded to almost 150 cities in
25 countries. Iozzi’s affiliate, with a staff of three
and several volunteers, serves 10 counties in
northern New Jersey and has helped nearly 1,000
women since the pandemic began.
“To have a stranger do something so nice for
you and reach out and really want to make
that connection because they can and because
they care, it’s really overwhelming, I think, for
our clients to come to terms with the fact there
are people out there like that,” Iozzi said. “It’s
very humbling.”
While many of Dress For Success’ clients come
from low-income brackets, several are women
over 50 who had 20 or more years of professional
experience and whose companies downsized
and didn’t rehire. Others are simply looking to
further their careers.
“Basically, if you’re a woman who needs to
be suited with confidence, we’re the go-to,”
Iozzi said. “You might be underemployed,
unemployed, you may be newly employed and
still just trying to figure out, OK, what does that
mean now? How do I budget? How can I get my
family to be in a better position? So we work
with a woman continually through that journey.”
The Jets hope to be there along the way, too,
to continue to encourage and assist women
through similar collaborations.
“It just helps the community and it really helps our
employees overall in their career development
and while they’re home, it helps them in their
personal development,” Mandler said. “I mean,
it just hit so many things for us internally and
organizationally that it just felt so good all around.”