While distracted in marketing class last year, College senior Elizabeth Chen dreamed up an idea to help the 2 billion people who have been infected with the Hepatitis B virus.
The idea evolved into the Jade Ribbon Charity Fashion Show, which was held at the Inn at Penn on Saturday. The event featured student-group performances, guest speakers, a DJ and a fashion show that featured the work of professional and student designers modeled by Penn students. Penn Team HBV and the Hep B Free Philly campaign also lent their time and effort to the event, which attracted about 200 guests.
Inspired by the struggle with breast cancer that several of her family members went through, as well as Valentino’s red fashion show which supported breast cancer, Chen — the vice president of community affairs for Team HBV — decided to create a jade collection to raise awareness for Hepatitis B.
“I just found it to be really frustrating that this disease is virtually curable. This is a disease that could be completely eradicated,” said Chen, who wore a jade dress to the event.
Off the Beat, Strictly Funk, Penn Dance and the Excelano Project gave performances throughout the event, with members incorporating green into their outfits.
School of Medicine professor Kyong-Mi Chang opened the event by explaining Hepatitis B and urging students to get the vaccine.
About 340 million people worldwide are chronically infected with the disease, with higher prevalence in Asia and Africa, according to Chang, who is also the director of the GI Hepatitis Clinic.
Teresa Lamore, associate program director of the Public Health Management Corporation and guest speaker at the event, encouraged students to donate their time.
“I applaud your efforts as college students for bringing awareness to an epidemic,” Lamore said. “This is affecting everyone. It doesn’t have the face of just one person. I could be infected. You could be infected.”
All proceeds from the event were donated to the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University, which researches the high occurrence of Hepatitis B among Asian Americans. Silent auction items and date auctions for models in the show were featured to help reach the goal of raising $3,000, according to Chen.
Both participants and guests found the benefit event to be not only educational, but rewarding as well.
College junior and model for the evening Tony Krumbhaar said he enjoyed meeting people through the event, and found modeling to be more challenging than he expected.
“It’s reaching outside my comfort zone,” he said. “The biggest thing is being confident; you gotta really have swagger.”
“[The student designers] were really good. It was really unique and the models were beautiful, so all in all it was a good show,” Wharton junior Cristina David said.
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