HOUSTON — Halloween costume models hardly used to ripping runways are prepping for a show you have to see.
It’s not about high-end threads -- just bonds many of us take for granted.
“This fashion show is going to be off the chain this year,” said John Fair, III, one of the participants.
John and his mom, Cassandra, founded a foundation with a motto, mission and fashion show like no other.
“It’s very important we get back on our feet again, get back to walking again, regaining our youth,” John Fair, III said.
At 12, John was a junior lifeguard so social that when his mom took him shopping, she struggled keeping up while he roamed the store making friends with strangers.
Then surgeons tried fixing John’s scoliosis. Three years of surgery left John paralyzed from the chest down, often alone and isolated from kids his age.
“It’s hard sometimes, but that’s life,” he said.
“For awhile, he was very, very depressed, but the Williams Syndrome kicked in,” his mom said. “It’s characterized by really no matter what you’re going through, you’re going to see the bright side of it. You’re going to focus on the positive and not the negative.”
It helped John roll forward. However, not without thinking about other kids who cannot.
His family started the John Fair III Spinal Cord Injury Foundation which hosts events for kids with disabilities to bond with one another.
“Everyone likes fashion shows,” John said.
Their headline event is a red carpet show called the Stroll and Roll. Kids get fitted for custom costumes made by Houston Art Institute students. Then they rock the runway.
Next Saturday’s show is getting support from the City of Houston, the Houston Astros and others.
“It makes you just so proud to be a part of something like this, and how you want to get more people involved and what could we do to make this a bigger event,” said Manisha Sista, whose husband’s business, Dentiq Dentistry, sponsors the event.
For John, it is all about looking good and feeling like a star with friends.
The Stroll and Roll is from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Ocy. 20 at The Downtown Club at Houston Center.