By JOSEPH KELLARD
The event¹s organizers originally aimed to raise $1,000 more than the $5,000 they helped raise last year. Instead, the more than 100 students who participated in the March 30 show at OHS, including kids from Penny Ellis¹s and Lauren Garelick¹s Life Skills classes, managed to raise nearly $10,000 to fund the post-prom party. The Fashion Show is Dawn Delirium¹s greatest source of funding.
For 16 years the PTA at OHS has sponsored the party, with the goal of providing students with a fun and safe environment following the senior prom.
Instrumental in the success of this year¹s show was Linda Adams, who, with the assistance of Board of Education member and former OHS PTA President Sandi Schoell, organized the event. Adams brought in corporate sponsors, including the Mets, Islanders and Lord & Taylor, as well as Manhattan fashion designers and photographers, who donated their original works.
³I thought outside the box,² said Adams, a former marketing and communications executive at the International Design Center New York.
Among local contributors were CVS on Atlantic Avenue, which donated skin care products as giveaways for everyone who attended the show and provided several baskets worth $100 each to be used as prizes, and Vision Decision, which gave away $50 gift certificates to every student who participated in the show and donated several pairs of designer sunglasses. A local limousine company made a large donation, and a local hair salon did hair and makeup for free.
Adams also divided the labor by forming committees, from gowns to tuxedos to photocopies.
This was Adams¹s first year of involvement in the fashion show, thanks to encouragement from her friend Susan Dauber, in whose memory the show was dedicated this year. Dauber, an Oceanside parent who was killed in a car accident in January, was active in the PTA and the community and played a key role in Dawn Delirium over the years.
As always, the show was held in the OHS cafeteria, but this year it had an actual runway, and an estimated 1,000 people showed up.
³Clearly the community came out for Susan, who has a daughter, Mindy, who¹s graduating this year, and so they really wanted it to be a success this year,² Adams said. ³... I also do think the special needs kids being included added a whole other dimension to people coming who would not have attended.²
Adams also recognized the many senior parents who helped out with the show. ³They worked so hard, and this could not have been done without them,² she said.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
