Lee’s Summit prom boutique gives away dresses, smiles: ‘Yes to the dress’
Each year, as prom season approaches, Lee’s Summit’s Woods Chapel United Methodist Church turns into a shopping center.
Volunteers hang up hundreds of donated dresses and suits, all offered for free to area students, and then open their pop-up boutique. Youths walk the racks, hunting determinedly for just the right style and fit and grinning as they try on their finds.
“They go in, and they put that dress on, they come out and look at themselves in the mirror, and they smile … it’s amazing to see,” said Christy Barber, one of the many volunteers who make the church’s annual prom event possible.
Organizers estimate the event started with about 1,500 new or gently worn prom dresses across a range of styles and sizes, as well as a smaller selection of suits and tuxedos, to pick from this year. Everything, including jewelry, purses, shoes and other accessories, is given away gratis.
Volunteers don’t ask about income, and only inquire about where students go to school. Students come from around the region and both Missouri and Kansas.
Some items are pulled from closets and donated to the program (Barber pointed out one donation of around 60 pairs of the same size of shoes that came from one person), and others come from area businesses. All are free.
“If you look in our sanctuary, part of our mission is to make everyone who comes here feel included, accepted and loved,” Barber said. “People are like, well, it’s kind of a weird ministry for a church, but you know, every student, if we can have their experience in this building, make them feel somebody cared about me, somebody treated me like I was special — and our volunteers are amazing — that’s what we want them to feel.”
Each year, volunteers reach out to schools in the area and invite them to send students. Last year, the boutique served more than 1,000 students from 120 schools. Since 2005, the boutique has given away more than 26,000 dresses.
The program first launched in 1998 as the idea of Sonia Clogston, a member of the church who was also a Missouri social worker who worked with girls in foster care or other care organizations and wanted to find prom dresses for those youths. In 2005, Clogston partnered with the church as the event gained traction. The church has hosted the event annually every year since then, except for 2021, because of the pandemic.
“The church was sort of like, ‘Well, maybe we could do that as a ministry,’” Barber said. “It began very small, a hundred dresses, and it has grown and grown and grown.”
The program is run by a small army of volunteers: Barber estimated it takes around 200 people to put on the event. Some do alterations, others help with measurements and others with tracking down the right items.
Donna Coleman said she began volunteering at the boutique after her daughter got a dress when she was in high school in 2019. She has been giving back every year since then, she said.
“To see the faces — oh my God — to see the faces on them once they put on a dress,” she said. “When they say yes to the dress….”
This year’s event was open on Tuesday and Wednesday and will reopen on Friday and Saturday.
For more information, visit promboutique.org.
This story was originally published March 6, 2026 at 9:00 AM.
