Northeastern University Fashion Event Collects Money and Clothes for Charity
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| On February 12, Northeastern University in Boston, Mass. hosted a runway fashion show organized by the Student Alumni Association (SAA) as part its Fashion in Action program. The show wasn’t your typical fashion event.
The Huntington News reports that the fashion show did not flaunt the latest trends, but rather showcases donated items from the student body refashioned into stylish, like-new clothing. “Over the past two months, the Northeastern and Boston communities have been asked to clean out their closets and donate gently-used or no longer wanted clothes,” said Dayna Altman, a senior human services and psychology major. Altman is the vice president of community service at SAA as well as the organizer of Fashion in Action. Altman and other members of Fashion in Action then sorted out all the donations to make outfits for the show. After the show, the clothing was donated to local non-profits serving survivors of domestic violence such as Casas Myrna, Penelope’s Place, and RESPOND. In addition to the fashion show, the event included an a cappella group, a comedy improv group, and a spoken-word poetry artist. “In order to make the show as interesting and captivating as possible, I thought we could intersperse the modeled looks with performances,” Altman said. The clothing wasn’t the only thing Fashion in Action was able to collect. The event also included a $5 requested admissions fee, the proceeds of which were donated to The Joyful Heart Foundation. The Joyful Heart Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to working with victims of domestic and sexual violence. The event was inspired by Altman’s experiences in volunteering for The Joyful Heart Foundation. She was shocked to meet women who quite literally only had the clothing they had on them when they came to the organization. “I was thinking about ways in which I could spread the message of domestic violence and sexual assault in a creative way that people would want to be a part of,” she said. She went on to claim that a clothing drive that did not tie into the issues of domestic violence would have felt “incomplete.” “I think there is a lot to be said about feeling good in your own skin, and giving women the clothing and tools to help them feel good in theirs is really important to me,” she said. |
