Losing items with prestiging before the update

Doktor

I haven't had the chance to prestige anyone since I started playing the game because I didn't want to lose the event items I got from my first event (i.e. Year 4 cake, it's mostly a sentimental thing), which is why I'm happy to see that that's being changed now. The problem is is that I still can't prestige before the update because I'll still lose my items, so I'll be disqualified from getting whatever exclusive comes with prestiging characters before this update. Is there any way around this, so I can prestige before this update but still keep those items and therefore qualify for the exclusive? This part of update sort of defeats the purpose, in my situation, because of this. I wouldn't mind putting in the hours to prestige if I could just keep those items. Any suggestions or help? Thanks!