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Donation Rocks: Tony Award Winners Donate Their Duds
On July 7, Housing Works got a little help from a trio of Tony award winners.
Lead cast members from Broadway’s American Idiot paraded into Housing Works’ Hell’s Kitchen Thrift Shop to host a donation drive, handing over their own threads and encouraging others to do the same.
“Shopping at Housing Works? It’s good for the environment, you’re helping people, and you’re wearing something no one else is,” said actress Leslie McDonel, after emptying a portion of her closet onto a store counter. “This issue definitely affects me: My father died of AIDS.”
Profits from the drive will go toward the more than $14 million Housing Works Thrift Shops raise each year. Those funds, in turn, will be used to help the organization’s HIV-positive clients, financing health clinics, housing sites, job training programs, and advocacy work.
At Hell’s Kitchen, fans arrived early to donate vintage records and at least one designer dress. They posed for pictures with the cast and were entered into a raffle to win tickets to the show.
“It’s rare when any sort of consumption is done for someone else,” said cast member Libby Winters. “It makes me more willing to donate.”
Photo, from left: Rebecca Naomi Jones, Leslie McDonel, and Libby Winters, from the cast of Green Day’s American Idiot. See more images on flickr.
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