NEW YORK — Fashion Delivers Charitable Foundation Inc., the apparel industry nonprofit group recently formed to help people rebuild their lives following a natural disaster or tragedy, will participate in its first MAGIC show Feb. 21-24.
Fashion Delivers, allied with associate charitable agency Kids in Distressed Situations Inc., will have a display area in the Grand Lobby of the MAGIC Marketplace donated by MAGIC International.
Joining Fashion Delivers and K.I.D.S. will be Nick Barnett, a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers, who will be signing autographs from 3 to 4 p.m. on Feb. 21 and from 2 to 3 p.m. on Feb. 22.
The two charitable organizations will provide MAGIC attendees with literature on their efforts to expedite large-scale product donations from the apparel and home goods industries to survivors of natural disasters.
Fashion Delivers’ debut product drive with K.I.D.S. last fall helped mobilize manufacturers to donate over $3.2 million in merchandise to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Fashion Delivers is the brainchild of its chairman, Allan Ellinger, who is senior managing director of consulting firm Marketing Management Group. The charitable organization is set up so that it can continue to conduct product drives whenever and wherever needed following any natural disaster or tragedy. Its affiliation with K.I.D.S. enables Fashion Delivers to reach a broad range of donors and leverage existing distribution.
“Janice Weinman and her organization, K.I.D.S., have taken Fashion Delivers under their wings and shown us the ropes. For Joe Loggia [president and chief executive of Advanstar Communications Inc., owner of MAGIC] to grant us such a prime location at MAGIC, the biggest and oldest trade show in the industry, is a real coup and we are beyond grateful to them both,” said Ellinger in a statement.
The board of Fashion Delivers is composed of luminaries from the apparel and home sectors, including: Dick Baker, president, the OP Division of Warnaco Group; Sean Combs, chairman, Sean John; Morris Goldfarb, chairman and ceo, G-III Apparel Group Ltd.; Michael Setola, president, Oxford Industries Inc., and Russell Simmons, ceo, Phat Fashions. Senior advisors include Herb Aaronson, Norman Fryman, Ed Kaminow and Norman Karr.