Heartwarming Story Revealed Behind California 'Promposal' Video

TEMECULA, CA- When Ivy walked through the store, brushing past the rainbow of chiffon dresses waiting for someone to try them on and take them home for the the upcoming prom season, she didn’t stop. She wasn’t one of the lucky ones.

Her prom prospects were looking bleak and she was going to end her high school career without attending the most most anticipated event of all. But she kept a smile on her face and spent the day at the mall with her family. Little did she know of a life-changing plan that was about to take shape.

Sitting in the food court at the Temecula Promenade Mall, a stranger walks up to Ivy, and hands her a piece of candy with a note. And then another. And another. They keep coming, some 20-25 strangers, all with a candy and note in tow.

“You are amazing!” one note reads. “You are beautiful!” says another. “The world is better because of you!”

Then, at the tail-end of them, comes 17-year-old Michael Skaggs, a senior at Great Oak High School.

“Hi, I’m Michael,” he says. “Would you like to go to Great Oak’s prom? I think it’d be sweet if you went to prom with me.”

Stunned and in disbelief of what was happening, Ivy asks him, “What?”

After it clicks what is happening, she says yes. Promptly followed by “Who ARE you?”

Strangers Step Up

On Tuesday, Michael and Ivy met for the first time. That’s because Ivy’s mother, Estelle Banks, wanted to do everything she could to help get her daughter to her homeschool prom; a prom she feared she would otherwise miss. So she posted a request for community help in the 32,000-member Temecula Talk Facebook group.

“We don’t have a homeschool network & the kids don’t know many kids here still,” she wrote in part. “She is a senior and this is her last chance. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to go [because] of being homeschooled and not knowing anyone. She’s super sad about it but accepting it. I really want to surprise her in a special way but need your help!”

A fellow member and local mom Deborah Skaggs saw that post.

“When Estelle posted that… I thought, ‘I wonder if Michael would do that?’” Skaggs tells Patch. “He didn’t even hesitate and said ‘I’ll do it!’”

That’s when Skaggs reached out to Banks, and she says the two of them got to planning. Along with some high school friends and the parents, Michael was able to come up with the idea of putting positive affirmations on several pieces of candy to be handed out by strangers a la flash mob style at the Temecula mall. And rather than taking Ivy to her prom way out in Anaheim, he would take her to the local one.

“As a mom, it gives you hope that there are still good people out there, and my son is one of them.”

Skaggs says the entire promposal especially makes her proud, as her son was diagnosed in junior high with a mild case of Asperger’s syndrome and he struggles with social issues at times. She tells Patch she was overcome with “... gratitude, appreciation, that this young man would put himself out there like that.”

“It made me appreciate the heart that my son has,” she said.

The entire “promposal” went off without a hitch, as the crowds cheered when Ivy accepted Michael’s invitation, aided by the support of dozens of Temecula Talk strangers who showed up at the Promenade to help.

“I didn’t know anybody,” Skaggs tells Patch. “For the most part, it was a bunch of strangers getting together to help someone they didn’t even know.”

One of those strangers was Amanda Sanchez.

“I saw her post on Temecula Talk and offered to come to videotape for them,” Sanchez tells Patch. “it was an amazing feeling! To see our community come together and support these awesome moms and kids!

“After she said YES! We all started cheering and everyone in the mall stopped dead in their tracks and looked over at us! For those few seconds they had all eyes on them lol it was also my birthday and it really made me grateful to be alive another year and to have been able to live in this amazing community my entire life!!”

The Big Day

Prom isn’t until April 30 at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and already several other local community members have come forward to make sure Michael and Ivy have the time of their lives. Some are donating services like photography, hair and makeup.

As for the two high schoolers, Deborah Skaggs says they plan to hang out a few times before the event, and that they can’t wait.

Looks like Ivy will have to head back to that prom shop now. She’s one of the luckiest of all.