On certain Saturday mornings, the second floor hallway outside Suite 205 of the Woodlawn Pointe Center for Community on the West Side is teeming with shoe racks, handbags and teenagers.
Inside, every inch of the room is overflowing with an estimated 2,000 prom dresses and shoeboxes line one of the walls.
Ashley Johnson, founder and president of the nonprofit Project Prom Dress San Antonio, runs from inside the suite to the hallway and back as she greets and gives directions to teenagers looking for a dress for their special night.
In the middle of all the movement, Johnson eyes a dress a teenager just tried on and is holding up by the hanger, and her attention shifts from the dress to which of the 200 pairs of shoes on the rack is the right size, color and style to pair with it.
When Johnson’s stepdaughter, Brittany, started planning for her junior prom in 2014, she was reminded of her own high school prom back in 2002 when she had to balance school and a part-time job at Six Flags on the weekends to pay for her expenses. Although Brittany decided to postpone prom until her senior year, Johnson was moved to action by the memory of her prom experience.
“So many kids don’t get to go [to prom],” said Johnson, adding that some teens miss out on this rite of passage due to the costs of attending.
A 2015 survey conducted by Visa, the most recent such data available, showed that Southern families spend an average of $544 on prom night, and dresses are among the most expensive items from the long list of prom expenses.
With this in mind, Johnson and her husband, Rodney, decided to found Project Prom Dress to provide formal attire to teens at no cost to their families. They expanded a couple of years later to provide formal suits and other attire as well as dresses and increased their availability for homecoming, graduations, banquets or any school formal event.
A similar venture in New Braunfels started in 2018 when Serena Morris, a teacher at Premier High School, realized some of her students were skipping prom due to the expenses.
“There’s kids that need dresses and can’t afford it,” Morris said during the Princess 4 A Night three-day pop-up event in March at the New Braunfels Westside Community Center, which distributed more than 200 dresses over the weekend.
More than 100 students from 22 high schools attended the March event looking for their prom attire, a big jump from the first iteration of the event attended by 15 students from two high schools.
For next year, Morris expects to create a more complete experience for students by providing meals and snacks while they look for their dresses along with hair styling and gift cards.
Yazmine Aguirre, a high school senior from IDEA Mays, visited Project Prom Dress with her mom, Naomi Aguirre, and her 3-year-old sister, Elleora, in April to look for her prom dress.
As other teenagers swarmed the dresses, Aguirre patiently waited on a bench in the middle of the stairs for her turn. She swiftly looked through the racks, grabbing the dresses that caught her attention to try them on, and found the perfect bejeweled gown to wear at her masquerade-themed prom in May.
Johnson’s assistance getting Aguirre ready for prom didn’t stop there.
After learning that Aguirre wanted to get her nails done for the event, Johnson made a post on the NextDoor app, an app to connect with neighbors, looking for a nail technician to sponsor Aguirre’s manicure.
Michelle Sauceda, owner and nail technician at Nailed by Shell, responded to the post offering to sponsor a total of four girls’ nails, including Aguirre, who got a set of bejeweled French tip nails to match her dress.
“Every girl deserves to feel pretty on her special day,” Sauceda said. Aguirre’s aunt, Jessica, did her hair and makeup.
Aguirre is one of 1,000 teens Project Prom Dress has outfitted in the San Antonio area since its founding nine years ago, according to Johnson.
Project Prom Dress has no plans to stop making prom dreams a reality for San Antonio teens. If the organization can get funding for it, Johnson would like to obtain a van to do offsite pop-up events to bring Project Prom Dress to different communities within the San Antonio area.
