Fashion With Compassion: $5000 To Save a Child's Heart
Fashion with Compassion — a global organization based in Israel — helps students worldwide put on a fashion show fundraiser. This year, they chose to donate the money raised to Save a Child's Heart, which provides life-saving heart surgeries to children in developing countries. Created by students, for students, Fashion With Compassion empowers its members to believe in themselves and to take responsibility for serving as agents of change. Last year — FWC’s first year running at JCHS — a senior put on the for her Keystone project. This is the second year we have hosted the show, and Eliza ‘20 took it over for her sister.
Even though many people participated in planning, Lucy 20’ and Eliza 20’ took the reins; they emailed, scheduled, ordered, and put the show together. “It was super fun to plan because we got to watch the behind the scenes of this entire show coming together! It was super successful, as we sold out seats and people were even standing around to watch as the show went on. Planning was overall something that required a lot of time management but was really fun and interesting because we got to see the management side of an event of this scale” (Lucy 20’). They even managed to get brands like Margaret O'Leary, Vilebrequin, Superga, CycleBar, and Kendra Scott to set up boutiques at the show. The shops were incredibly successful and ended up selling lots of items.
On Wednesday, May 2nd it went off without a hitch. While it was hectic, it was also lots of fun. Everyone who participated in planning, modeling or the general excitement of the buzz around the school would agree that it was stressful — but definitely worth it. However, if you didn't attend the event you may be wondering what actually happened. The setup was frenzied and busy; everyone who helped out from outside the school came all at once and arrived in a flood. Superga came first — I was their JCHS representative so I met them in the parking lot and helped them lay out their shoes. In general, however, all the pop-ups were very prepared for the show. Then at 4:30 the hair and makeup people arrived. They appeared in a rush and asked for our first models to get sent up to the EverLab immediately. They worked speedily and efficiently, making sure everyone was runway ready before the guests began to appear.
The event started when the room was filled; first Lucy 20’ and Eliza 20’ gave a speech about what the next few hours would entail, Dr. Lessy spoke about what it was like to work on this project, and then the representatives from Save a Child's Heart spoke about the organization where the money would be going to. The modeling portion of the fashion show went well — everyone was captivated by the models and the awesome clothes they were wearing. When the event ended people had a chance to buy some of the clothes that were modeled and shop at the boutiques. Everyone received a goodie bag which consisted of socks, toothpaste, coupons to Tommy Hilfiger, stickers from Brandy Melville and Vineyard vines, among some other cool stuff.
Overall the event fundraised almost 5000 dollars to donate to Save a Child's Heart. If you would like to participate next year, Lucy 20’ and Eliza 20’ will be making committees to relieve some of the stress off of everyone who was involved and make it more of a group effort. If you did not go to the event but would like to donate to the organization you can go to their website and donate directly (https://www.saveachildsheart.com). Here's to next year's fashion show!
