At Operation Deploy Your Dress, military families say yes to the dress for free

Fort Hood, Texas — A nice dress for a special event can be expensive. But at a boutique on the Fort Hood Army base, members of the military and their families don't have to worry about the price tag. 

Major Lisa Northway, a chaplain, was looking for a ball gown when CBS News visited. When she found one, she took it home for free. So will all military members and their families browsing the boutique. 

"The cost of a dress — which can sometimes be $200, $300, $400 — is the difference between buying food and going to a ball," said Yvonne Coombes, who co-founded Operation Deploy Your Dress. 

Operation Deploy Your Dress is a nonprofit accepting donations of clothes and cash to make attending formal events possible for military families. The nonprofit, which has boutiques on 13 bases, has given away almost 18,000 dresses in seven years. 

For Northway, whose work can be heavy, it's a chance to step away. 

"It's like getting to join life's party," she said. "We do have reasons to celebrate and to cheer each other on."