High Fashion Lends a Helping Hand to Miller Children’s at the Annual Auxiliary Fashion Show

The Hyatt Regency in Long Beach was a flurry of high fashion and big hearts. More than 350 people attended the annual Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach Auxiliary Fashion Show. This year the event benefited the Miller Children’s Pediatric Emergency Department (ED).

The Pediatric Emergency Department provides a 24-hour multi-disciplinary and multi-specialty approach for consultation, diagnostic testing and medical management of infants, children and young adults with urgent and emergent medical, surgical and traumatic conditions. The emergency department care team, all specially trained in pediatrics, and a dedicated emergency department Child Life Specialist is on-hand to help lessen anxieties and explain what is often a first-time hospital experience.

“I am honored that the Auxiliary members chose the Pediatric Emergency Department to be the beneficiary of this year’s fashion show, says Gary Moreau, M.D., medical director, Pediatric Emergency Department at Miller Children's. “We are one of the few hospitals in the area that is approved by LA County as a designated Emergency Department Approved for Pediatrics. Our Emergency Department provides emergency care for more than 23,000 children each year.”

Each year, the Auxiliary organizes a fashion show and luncheon providing runway entertainment with some of the areas top models. The Annual Fashion Show featured gowns from Melrose Alley Boutique in West Hollywood. Before the fashion show, the 360 attendees bid on a large selection of donated baskets and items including Lakers tickets, golf packages and other high-end packages. The event raised $40,000 this year.

“I am so proud of the members of the Children's Memorial Hospital Auxiliary and our accomplishments," says Margie Penny, president, Auxiliary. “We were founded 65 years ago by three wonderful women who had the vision to form an Auxiliary to help the children of Long Beach. I am sure the founders would be very proud of their legacy and the decades of philanthropic giving that this group is responsible for.”

In addition to the Annual Fashion Show, the Auxiliary also runs the hospital’s Gift Shop, and supports other fundraising activities such as the Nightingale’s Faires, a boutique style shopping experience at the hospital and a monthly Birthday Club for hospitalized children.