The Metro: The Prom Promise removes financial barriers to give students ‘a prom night to remember’
Lauren Myers, Cary Junior II, The Metro May 21, 2025Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Mackenzie Thompson, founder of The Prom Promise.
Prom is an exciting time for high school seniors here in metro Detroit. It’s a right of passage — a moment to celebrate hard work, friendships, and the end of one chapter before beginning another.
But for many families, prom doesn’t just come with emotional weight — it comes with a financial one. Parents often spend thousands of dollars to get their kids ready for the big night. And if there’s more than one child in the house, the cost can quickly get out of reach for many.
Today on The Metro, we spoke with MacKenzie Thompson, founder of The Prom Promise — an initiative dedicated to making prom more accessible for students across Detroit. We also spoke with Renaissance High School senior Jillian Jones, whose prom is coming up this Friday.
Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.Donate today »
More stories from The Metro
Authors
-
-
Cary Junior II is an audio journalist and producer for The Metro on 101.9 WDET. Cary has worked as a producer or host on a number of projects. His work includes short and longform audio, documentary series and daily radio. In his five year career in journalism he has worked for Crooked Media, the Detroit Free Press, and now WDET - Detroit's NPR station.
-