runway to service: fashion for all’s first appearance: this week!
As many of you know, I’ve spent the bulk of my waking hours on my burgeoning non-profit, Fashion For All. Fashion For All is a (soon-to-be) national non-profit that offers women living in low-income communities, in twelve major cities across the country, a day of dignified shopping and access to community-based organizations, which provide educational, career, health, wellness, and parenting resources. Fashion For All seeks to arm underprivileged women with the resources they need in order for them to achieve personal and professional growth. On an ongoing basis, Fashion For All will connect women with local community groups and national organizations that offer parenting, educational, health, wellness, personal and professional developmental resources.
From attorney meetings to reviewing endless drafts of marketing materials, to researching potential non-profit partners to planning a holiday event - this one-time idea, which has evolved into an organization, is all-consuming. In my quieter moments a part of me wants to give up, knows it would be simpler to return to a full-time corporate job and all the security it brings, because launching an exhaustion by myself is… exhausting. I’ve taken on freelance work to not only keep me afloat, but to also pay for the mounting costs it takes to launch a new venture. Yesterday I took a look at my credit card statement and I nearly choked. In the beginning of 2009, I was nearly out of credit card debt. Now? It’s formidable. And I had to close my eyes and breathe and breathe and breathe, and repeat that this was all for a greater good, an investment. I had to say these words as if I were some sort of fakir. Conjuring something to rise from the ground.
So I press on, and take my victories where I can because I know that I can’t go back to office life when I’ve found the one thing that wakes me in the morning.
And one of the major accomplishments is Fashion For All’s participation in MyGoodDeeds’ Runway to Service auction, and various service-awareness initiatives during this year’s New York Fashion Week. This Friday, meet me, my board members, and representatives from MyGoodDeeds/911Day.org inside the IMG Lounge at Bryant Park.
So stop by Bryant Park this Friday, grab a Fashion For All press kit or brochure, or learn more about how you can give back in your community. Meanwhile, I’ll be taking some deep breaths and trying to appreciate all that’s right in front of me.