She looked at a lot of prom dresses, recording her favourites in an album, caught up in the springtime rite for high school grads.

In the end she went with a deep royal blue. Lightweight. Rectangular shape. Cardboard.

The box, not the dress — a donation collection box.

The dress never got purchased. Instead Ancaster teenager Ashley Yu wrapped up her last year of high school by launching a crowd-funding campaign called Ditching Prom for Nepal.

"I needed to end the year with something bigger than myself," she said.

Ashley, who turns 18 in July, read an article in early May about how, in the wake of the devastating earthquake in the South Asian country, three million people were homeless.

Then she heard on Facebook about a U.S. teen who started a "ditch the prom for the homeless" campaign, encouraging friends to reallocate money they otherwise would have burned on formal wear and tuxedos and limo rides.

With encouragement from her guidance counsellor at Ancaster high school, and friend Lara Besermenji, she launched Ditching Prom for Nepal with her online crowd funding goal of $500 — enough to buy a homeless family a tent to live in, she learned.

Funds go to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and are earmarked for Nepal.

As of Sunday night she had nearly doubled that to $871.

To learn more about her campaign or to donate, go to gofundme.com

Her largest donation is from a local businessperson. He sent her an email: "I'm a big fan of character. There are people who talk about it, and there are people like you who do something about it."

Her second largest donation came at a TEDx women's conference downtown last week.

Ashley convinced organizers to give her a few minutes to address the group, and then went table-to-table making her pitch while holding her blue donation box, raising $225 in cash.

She is not opposed to high school proms, but has no regrets missing hers.

"If you want to go to prom, then fulfil your heart, but I felt like I was saving up for nothing. I just don't think it's that important."

The A-plus student is active in women's and children's social justice issues, and plans to pursue a career that will take her far and wide to help, perhaps working for a UN agency.

That journey begins in September when she attends McGill University in Montreal.

"I've never been anywhere, never travelled. I want to be a citizen of the world … my purpose is to help women in developing countries."

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She recently started creating a life binder, which includes five pages listing future goals.

Ashley Yu wrote the first goal down two weeks ago: raise $500 for Nepal.

Check.