Bethany House fashion show returns

Baldwin-based women’s home Bethany House sold out its 19th annual Fashion Show March 9 at the Rockville Links Club in neighboring Rockville Centre. After two years away because of the pandemic, the fundraising event returned to huge fanfare.

Bloomingdale’s partnered with Bethany House, providing the models with several outfits each to show off as they strutted down a runway in the club’s dining room. Miss New York USA 2021 Briana Siaca, a Long Island native, warmed up the runway for the models, most of whom were Rockville Centre residents.

Before the main event, attendees chose from among dozens of raffle baskets, with items like handbags, wallets, beauty products and wine kits, to bid on. Proceeds from the event will be directed to continuing Bethany House’s mission of providing housing for women in Nassau County who are struggling — those who are homeless, and women with children who are need of emergency shelter. The organization has homes in Baldwin, Bellmore and Roosevelt.

The attendees also took part in a mystery raffle, which has become a staple of recent Bethany House fashion shows. The boxed items were donated by Bethany House supporters, and were valued at between $5 and $25, and there was a grand prize box as well. After dinner was served, those who had purchased boxes ripped open the black wrapping paper to find out what they had received.

Catherine Casella, a volunteer for Bethany House, has run the mystery box raffle since 2017. This year there were 300 boxes, up from 175 in the last pre-pandemic show, in 2019, and Casella wrapped all of them. “I think it’s wonderful,” she said of the growth of the raffle. “We have a very good donating community — from boxes to tissue paper to other items — and if I don’t use them, I hand them over to Jane” — Bethany House Volunteer Coordinator Jane McCabe — “and she uses them for the raffle baskets.”

Casella has been volunteering for six years, initially inspired by her friend McCabe, who has been with the organization since 2013. “I got a tour of the houses, and I fell in love with how clean this was,” McCabe recalled. “It was eye-opening. I’ve seen progress, and I’ve heard sad stories.”

McCabe explained that Bethany House has a social worker assigned to each family to help them with priorities like going back to school or accessing government benefits. McCabe is also a member of the organization’s Resource Development Committee, and works with the committee’s co-chair, Lisa King, who also joined the organization in 2013. During the pandemic, King, McCabe and the committee staged virtual fundraisers to continue to bring in money and donated items to help the women at the shelters.

Even throughout the pandemic, McCabe said, volunteers were clamoring to help. “It’s been wonderful, but it’s been disheartening,” she said, “because I have to say, ‘Let me put your name on a list and I’ll call you back.’”

Douglas O’Dell, Bethany House’s executive director, took over in September 2020, after five years in the same role at SCO Family of Services, another nonprofit that helps struggling families in New York City and Long Island. O’Dell spent his first year and a half at Bethany House navigating Covid restriction, while having to raise funds without the benefit of in-person events.

O’Dell said that the organization relies on fundraising for about half of its funding. He credited Nassau County as well as the state and federal governments for their financial help during the worst days of the pandemic.

“I have never been involved in an organization where the community has given so much,” O’Dell said. “We have a food budget, but we barely spent any money at all on food during the pandemic, because the people in Rockville Centre, Baldwin, Roosevelt, Freeport and Uniondale stepped up.”

At press time, the organization was still tallying the donations from the Fashion Show, but a spokesperson said the hope was that the total was around $20,000.