Benefit honors former activities director

Just before intermission of the Benefit Fashion Show held on March 3 in the Large Gym, Rebeca Marshburn, the former activities director who moved to Texas two years ago, stepped onto the stage and shared her story of losing her daughter Courtney to cancer more than a decade ago.

This year, the show was held to raise money for cancer research and in honor of Marshburn by bringing her back to the school. The event raised roughly $6,500 to donate to the American Cancer Society and had record participation with more than 200 student models.

According to head commissioner Kate Bossi, finding a charity to donate to was somewhat of a journey in itself.

“We had a lot of different ideas, but nothing seemed to work out,” Bossi said. “Then, Mr. (Matt) Torrens gave us the amazing idea of inviting Mrs. Marshburn to the show. After he explained her story to us, we knew the American Cancer Society was perfect.”

In order to make the commissioners’ idea of inviting their beloved former teacher a reality, they, along with the help of Leadership teacher and current activities director Matt Torrens, raised money to fly Marshburn out from Texas to visit the school — an idea which “hit him like a brick” due to his great respect for her.  

In this year’s show, the commissioners also added an “Design Your Own” category, where student designers freshman Carminho Moniz, junior Isabelle Rieken and senior Katrina Sung produced original outfits to model on the runway, surprising audience members.

“I really enjoyed the section where students modeled other classmate’s designs,” sophomore Kevin Chang said. “I thought it was a really cool addition to the show since I didn’t know that was an option.”

Additionally, during the preparation for this event, the commissioners ran into problems with securing sponsorships from stores, especially for men's clothing.

“It’s easy to see the organization as simply contacting stores and regulating the models, but many of the communication that we had to do was much more complicated than one email,” sophomore commissioner Ines Picard said.

The commissioners overcame this by persisting and asking every store within vicinity through phone calls, emails and in-person visits.

According to English teacher and Benefit Fashion Show adviser Natasha Ritchie, the few weeks preceding the show were extremely hectic, requiring an immense amount of work: putting together the show, arranging the borrowing of clothes, collecting silent auction items, transforming the gym into a runway and managing about 200 students.

“While we encountered numerous issues with setup, the actual show seemed to go well,” Ritchie said.

In the end, the commissioners felt this year’s Benefit Fashion Show was a success, and according to  Bossi, it remains one of the most inclusive and largest activities on campus.

“People get to feel confident and good about themselves as they walk down the runway, and the best part about it is that it's all for an amazing cause,” Bossi said.