Dix Hills teen organizes fashion show for good cause

Brandi LaCertosa is putting her blooming modeling career on hold as she devotes her summer to lifting the spirits of children at Stony Brook Cancer Center.

The Dix Hills 18-year-old pageant winner is single-handedly organizing a fashion show to raise money for A Mother’s Kiss, an organization dedicated to helping families of child cancer patients in the Long Island area.

The show, Runway to Recovery, is on Aug. 7 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Wind Watch Hotel of Hauppauge. Jim Douglas of Fresh 102.7 will host the event, which will feature a silent auction and performances by Jonathon Bellion and Taylor Ivy Rand. 

But the big draw will be the 18 Stony Brook Cancer Center patients who will model the outfits they co-designed in April with LaCertosa, a sophomore at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. The clothes will be sewn by LaCertosa from fabrics donated by Mood, B & J and more.

“I wanted to use my design skills because most charity events don’t involve the children this personally,” she said. “And these cancer patients need to get out of the hospital, need the excitement and need the money.”

LaCertosa decided to donate all funds from ticket sales, donations and sponsors to A Mother’s Kiss when she met the organization’s directors at a charity event in the spring.

“As a young student to do what she’s doing is incredible, we’re very proud of her and I think it’ll be a great event,” said Geri Garofallou, director of A Mother’s Kiss.

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The money raised at Runway to Recovery will help with medical-related costs and household expenses for families with child cancer patients, Garofallou said.

For LaCertosa, the day of the event will end of a summer full of fundraising, creating auction baskets and going door-to-door in New York City to countless fabric stores and potential sponsors.

“She’s really taken an interest in these children and has been doing every single aspect of this event from the first day when she met the kids to the moment she sees them on the runway,” Tami LaCertosa, 38, said of her daughter’s work.

Aside from organizing Runway to Recovery, LaCertosa has spent her summer volunteering at an animal shelter and preparing for her pageant for nationals as Miss Teen Earth Northeastern Earth U.S.

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“It’s been a lot of work sewing the kids’ outfits day and night but it’s really going to be so worth it,” LaCertosa said.

Tickets to the event are $35 for adults and $20 for children 10 and younger. They can be purchased at RunwaytoRecovery.webs.com.

Photo: Brandi LaCertosa is sewing all the outfits for the Runway to Recovery charity fashion show. (July 25, 2011)