As GCSE pupils in Liverpool start thinking ahead to celebrating at their prom after this summer’s exams, one Wavertree charity shop is determined that cost should not be a barrier.
Re-Loved on Picton Road is in its fourth year of offering free prom dresses to year 11 school pupils. The shop is part of a wider community project, Love Wavertree, a CIC that offers support to struggling families in L15.
Love Wavertree works closely with the council and schools to help with food, family care packages, free books on world book day as well as community litter picks.
Lorraine Scanlon has been volunteering at the shop for several years and came up with idea of giving donated evening dresses away to pupils for prom. “We pushed it out on Facebook asking people not sure what to do with evening clothes or prom dresses to please donate and we started getting quite a few through.”
Lorraine and her colleagues approached Archbishop Blanch girls’ school to see if they could help by having a pop up stall at their Year 11 parents evening.
Scanlon said the school have been really supportive of the scheme. She said: “All the girls can see us setting up and see the dresses, so it creates a nice little buzz for them…and if anyone wants a dress they can take one.”
The schools textile teachers also offer pupils dress alterations, which as Scanlon said can make the girls feel even more special “when you’ve got like three or four teachers around you saying ‘oh we could do this and do that’ it’s quite pampering”.
Many of the dresses still have the tags on and donations have come from local businesses as well as the community, including Cinders in Hale Village who gave 30 dresses to the scheme.
Scanlon said that they really don’t like to add a criteria to getting a free dress as they don’t want any pupil to go without “I think if the thought of a dress is a barrier to stopping you from going to prom, we’ll do our best to try and remove that barrier.”
Scanlon said she’s received touching letters from parents about how much the scheme has helped “they’ve actually made a real difference to some people, just that simple thing of donating something, they will never know the impact.”
At the moment the pop-up stall is only available at Archbishop Blanch School, due to volunteer capacity. However, they are hoping in time to expand and said if anyone contacts them directly looking for a dress they are keen to accommodate.
If you’d like to donate to the scheme, volunteer or your looking for a prom dress visit https://www.lovewavertree.com/
