Fashion for a passion

The John Molson School of Business (JMSB) is holding their tenth annual Commerce and Administration Students’ Associations (CASA) Cares Fashion Show on March 13. CASA Cares President Melissa Chryssochou has new things planned to keep things fresh and make this the most lucrative year for fundraising.
Melissa Chryssochou is hoping to raise $10,000 this year with the fashion show. She said they raised roughly $8,000 last year. This is Chryssochou’s second year involved with the fundraiser; she started last year as VP Marketing.
“I got interested because it was fundraising for the Montreal Children’s Hospital,” said mathematics graduate student and CASA cares model Hasmig Keropian, who also volunteers for the International Students Association.
Tatiana Aparicio of the Montreal Children’s Hospital, who works with CASA Cares to determine where the money should go, said every little bit helps, stating that the fashion show events have raised more than $29,000 since 2004. The money has been used in the past to support art therapy and pet therapy, programs Aparicio said would not be able to survive without community support.
This year, the money from the fashion show will be used to purchase a piece of equipment from the hospital’s high priority list. This hospital will determine which piece of equipment they will acquire once they know how much the fashion show has raised.
CASA’s Concordia’s Next Top Model event has been incorporated into the fashion show, a change from last year. “In last year’s show they used Concordia’s Next Top Model only as a way to recruit models,” said Chryssochou. “This year we’ve recruited the models, and we’re following up with it at the fashion show. We have a whole voting site.” Then there will be prizes for both a male and female model with the most votes in a variety of categories.
Everyone who works on the show is a student and is selected based on experience, giving members from a diverse cross-section of the student population an opportunity to participate, and gives those with less experience a chance to learn new things. In total CASA Cares has roughly 30 models, 30 volunteers, and about 10 or 11 executives.
“We don’t want it to be strictly just JMSB, we want it to be a Concordia fashion show,” said Chryssochou. “Right now it’s the only Concordia fashion show this big . . . I wanted to have the Montreal community see that Concordia’s giving back.”
“It’s going to be a very high energy show,” said Chryssochou to conclude, “It’s going to be very exciting.”