‘Womanless’ fashion show to benefit family

Published 12:33 am Thursday, July 12, 2012

Proceeds from the event will benefit Florala High School head football coach Justin Jones, his wife, Joni, and their family of four kids – Kaleb, Anna, Abby and Jacub.

Pretty is as pretty does – or at least “they” will on Saturday as friends of Florala High School football coach Justin Jones and his family sponsor a fundraiser “with a twist” for the family.

“The plan for this event is an almost typical fashion show, but with a major twist to it,” said organizer Kristy Caraway, who works as the manager of the Enterprise Maurices and is a Florala resident. “The event will feature male models wearing current fashion items from Maurice’s clothing line. There will be some coaches, football players and other community members involved in the modeling.

“This is going to be the first womanless fashion show ever for Maurices, and I couldn’t think of a better cause,” she said.

Proceeds from the event will benefit the Jones’ 15-month-old son Kaleb, who was diagnosed in February with a Stage 3 Wilms tumor. Within days of the diagnosis, the infant had surgery to remove his entire kidney and began chemotherapy and radiation at Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital. Since then, Kaleb has completed all of his radiation treatments and 13 of 16 chemo treatments. His treatments are now given every three weeks, which seems to be helping him tolerate the treatments better. If everything continues as planned, he should take his final chemo treatment during the first of September. The family received a positive report on their last visit when all of Kaleb’s scans came back negative and showed no signs of cancer where the tumor had been or in any other areas of his body.

Still trips, back and forth, to the doctor are expensive, and this fundraiser is a way of helping the family.

“Maurices likes to be involved in the local communities,” Caraway said. “One way of showing our appreciation is to give back to the local communities, such as, Relay for Life, toy drives, clothing drives, disaster assistance, food drives – and fundraisers like this.

“After hearing about Kaleb’s illness and being a parent myself, I was trying to figure a way that our local communities and Maurices could come together and help out the Jones family during this difficult time,” she said. “I felt that since they are from the Enterprise and are new to the Florala that a fundraiser involving both communities would be a great fit.”

There will also be door prizes given away and silent auction for items that have been donated by businesses in Enterprise and Florala.

Admission is $5 per person and children 6 and under free. All proceeds from this event will go to the Jones’ family. It will be held at 6 p.m., Saturday in the Florala High School gym.