Just a 10-minute walk from the flashing cameras and swarms of crowds outside the Met Gala last night, a very different sort of gala was taking place at the Central Park Boathouse. It was the inaugural iBrain Gala, a runway show dedicated to celebrating the nonverbal and physically disabled students who attend the iBrain school in Brooklyn and on the Upper East Side.
On a long red carpet, teenage students wearing tuxedos, glittering spring dresses and superhero costumes were helped out of their wheelchairs and into a pediatric metal exoskeleton that allowed them to walk. Their friends, family and teachers cheered them on with applause. Then they made their way to a small runway stage, where they basked in more applause.
The evening’s fashion theme was “Glamorous Superheroes,” and outfits included Aquaman, Superman and Batman. Artworks were auctioned off to bidders, including a painting titled “Transforming Marco” that depicted a wheelchair-using student named Marco Cohen walking for the first time with the exoskeleton device. The painting showed him striding forward alone with majestic purple waves flowing behind him.
The school’s founder and chairman, Patrick Donohue, explained his gala’s mission.
“The difference between the Met Gala and this gala,” he said, “is that over there, they have George Clooney walking around with a bunch of celebrities, and here, we have students walking for the very first time in their lives, and that is something special.”
Mr. Donohue founded the school, which also has a location in Washington, D.C., in 2018. The reason was partly personal: His teenage daughter, Sarah Jane, is severely disabled and brain-injured, and when she was a child he felt that the city’s schools could not adequately accommodate her needs, so he resolved to start his own.
As the night grew late, and the school’s students savored their last turns on the runway stage, Mr. Donohue reflected on the gala’s debut.
“We picked the Central Park Boathouse because we intentionally wanted to be close to the Met Gala to help bring attention to our inaugural event,” he added. “This event is here to highlight our amazing students and all our hard-working teachers and staff.”
“Because they actually are,” he added, “the most beautiful people in New York City tonight.”
