Four juniors at Columbia Preparatory School, realizing they could combine their fashion sense and high society connections to do good in the world, have found a way to go beyond the usual community-service chores required to graduate, such as painting park benches or reading to underprivileged children. With the help of Bloomingdale’s, Diane von Furstenberg, Ralph Lauren, and Gucci, they put on a fashion show that has raked in close to $120,000 for critically ill children and their families.

“This is not just community service,” the only boy in the group of 17-year-olds, Jake Lewin, said. “It’s community service with a purpose.”
In the elite world of Manhattan private schools, putting on philanthropic fashion shows by age 18 has become something of a trend. Students at other private schools also enlist their parents and friends to donate thousands of dollars to various causes, including curing breast cancer and avoiding pregnancy complications.

In May, a group of students from Hewitt, Columbia Prep, Horace Mann, Fieldston, Dwight, Spence, Heschel, and other schools will model in a fashion show to benefit Operation Smile involving more than 12 designers. The nonprofit, whose spokeswoman is Jessica Simpson, provides surgery for children with birth defects from poor countries.

Having experienced loss and illness in their own families, the four earnest, energetic planners of the “Here Comes the Sun” benefit, Greer Tessler, Cara Gerstle, Alison Karasyk, and Jake, say their fashion show, though smaller than others, comes from the heart.

“We’ve all had something that touched us,” Cara, whose mother died of pancreatic cancer when she was 14, said. Greer, whose cousin Gillian, also 17, has lupus, added: “This is just a bunch of kids working their butt off for something we believe in.”

The proceeds from the Columbia Preparatory School students’ event go to Camp Sunshine, a camp in Maine for sick children and their families. Jake and Alison volunteered there last summer.

For their first benefit last year, the four asked Diane Von Furstenberg to lend them clothing to model, and Greer’s parents paid for them to rent out an exclusive nightclub, Marquee, as the venue. They charged $125 a ticket for adults, $75 for students; they earned enough — $58,000 — to send 30 families to the camp for a week each.

Bloomingdale’s, which sent a representative to last year’s show, this year agreed to underwrite the benefit and provided the space, the fourth floor of its SoHo location. The store also provided the make up for the 20 teenage girls modeling Diane Von Furstenberg dresses and clothing for a half dozen high school boys who this year begged the planning committee to let them be models, too. “My school’s very metrosexual,” Jake said by way of explanation.

“It’s been a real community effort,” a spokeswoman for Bloomingdale’s, Anne Keating, said, adding that her company was participating in order to encourage “the philanthropists of the future.” Bloomingdale’s also allowed the several hundred participants and guests at the benefit to shop for an hour following the show and donated 10% of the sales, $5,000, to Camp Sunshine.

On Saturday, as Bloomingdale’s closed down and customers were hurried out the doors, the teenagers were given run of the department store. After donning their couture dresses, a clutch of 17-year-old girls wobbled on high heels, touching up their makeup and giggling, while their male counterparts roughhoused in suit jackets among the racks of designer clothing. The scene was reminiscent of a co-ed slumber party, until Diane Von Furstenberg’s director of special events, Luisella Meloni, snapped them to attention and began a lesson on how to strut down the catwalk.

Guests filtered in and snacked on catered hors d’oeuvres of pigs-in-a-blanket and mini hamburgers while admiring the gifts to be given a way in a raffle, including a Ralph Lauren leather jacket and a Gucci bag made especially for the event. A crew of workers set up an authentic elevated runway, where the four teenage organizers began the show by giving speeches.

“As New York City private school children, we frequently lose sight of the bigger picture,” Alison said, after she had recounted the story of her mother’s recovery from breast cancer. She then told about her week at Camp Sunshine, which “allowed us to step outside of Manhattan’s materialistic world.” It was a “transformative experience,” she said.

Then, the DJ started the music, and camera bulbs flashed as the teenagers began parading down the runway.