We Are Flint: This is Me special needs fashion show shines in its fifth year

Editor’s note: Flint is oftentimes cast in a negative light. While the city has its struggles, take a deeper look and you’ll see people fighting for their hometown, building the city back, and creating its future through their personalities and ideas while staying true to its history and vibrant culture. This weekly series of stories will show that Flint is more than a place. Flint is its people. We are Flint.

FLINT, MI — “This Is Me” started with a simple question between two loving mothers.

In 2018, Tracy Palmer was approached by Charise Key-Gray at one of her fashion shows against bullying.

Key-Gray thought her son Emari Suggs and his love of fashionable socks would do well on the runway.

At the time, he was 18 and known to be the most fashionable at his school. Suggs, who has autism, was also in the audience and lit up while watching models walk the runway.

“He likes to rock his cool socks and make sure all of his clothes match. It had to be blue shirt, blue pants, blue socks. He’s always gotten compliments being the best dressed person in school,” Key-Gray said. “I always want him to be able to express himself and thought this would be a perfect opportunity for autistic children or others with special needs to find themselves.”

Inspired by the interaction, Palmer set out to give a platform to individuals who have special needs and a spotlight to do something that they’re more than capable of doing.

Entering its fifth year, “This Is Me” has become a staple in the Flint community.

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“Tracy is just an amazing woman. She is an amazing mother. She has a huge heart to make this happen to something of this magnitude,” Key-Gray said. “She did the research to understand special needs, and to make sure it was about the participants first and the families. She wanted everyone to feel welcome.

“She doesn’t have a child with special needs, so for her to say yes, I cannot thank her enough. Tracy is Flint’s ‘She-ro.’”

Where it started

In 2013, Palmer set out to start Trendsetters Productions when her oldest daughter wanted to pursue modeling.

She traveled around the state to get her into different shows, but Palmer said it always felt like something was missing behind the scenes when it came to advocacy and support of young people.

“I knew we had to change the trajectory and change the look at what we’re doing,” Palmer said. “Walking the runway should be a boost for confidence and self esteem. I just didn’t see that out there, so I decided to change that.

“I changed the curriculum on how we look at beauty, how we look at walking the runway in hopes to instill confidence and how to love yourself, how to act behind the scenes and give them tools that help them last for a lifetime.”

Palmer has produced dozens of fashion shows centering around building confidence in youth.

She said people have to be mindful of what we’re pouring into young people before they get out into the world because they’re going to be exposed to so much.

Because if they’re not confident and unable to love themselves before that, Palmer said, the world will tear them apart and pull them in so many places.

“My goal is always to catch them at a young age and pour into them so they can hit the ground running,” she said. “My message to every young person and what I am to instill — you’re beautiful, you’re worth it. There is nothing anybody should tell you that will navigate or steal you away from your goals. You can do anything that you want to do.”

Two years into Trendsetters Productions, she had a round table with children between ages 9 and 15.

One young lady spoke up and told her story that moved Palmer to create a new platform.

The young woman spoke about being bullied that changed the way she looked at attending school.

Palmer said the young woman’s grades were declining and it changed the way she looked at friendships, as her friends were the ones bullying her more than strangers.

What was pivotal is the way the situation changed the way the young woman looked at herself, Palmer said.

“It’s very disheartening, as a mom even, to know that a child does not love themselves because of how someone else looks at them. That a child doesn’t want to eat lunch because they know someone’s going to bully them?” she said. “It’s really hard to know that these kids feel challenged to be the same. They don’t understand that the best thing that ever happened to us is that we all look different. We all want different things and we all have different talents.”

Nearly 75% of the students in the circle spoke up and formed a bond in their conversation about bullying, both in person and online, she said.

“It was effecting everybody. You don’t have to look a certain way to feel and be beautiful,” Palmer said. “Everything we do has purpose or has to leave some kind of legacy. Our goal is to empower these children to look back at each of these experiences as life-changing moments.

“The hope is anytime in the future each (child) can look back at this experience and remember ‘I am enough. That I’m worth it. That I’m beautiful and I can do anything I want to do.’”

This birthed the program “Fashion Against Bullying,” and it was that first show that she was approached by Key-Gray and moved her into the realm of advocating for special needs.

This year’s show

Twenty-five participants are set to be part of this year’s event set for 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10, at Sloan Museum of Discovery, 1221 E. Kearsley St. Tickets can be purchased here.

“It was changing their lives immediately ever since that first year. We were in tears,” Palmer said. “You could see their transformation with every step they took down the runway as people applauded and shouted out encouragement every step of the way.”

This year’s show is being help with support from the Sloan Museum, HAP, Comerica Bank, Horatio Williams Foundation, Genesee Health System and State Bags.

There will be four sets of participants walking the runway in 2023. Three of the sets will feature local designers’ lines and clothing.

Songs will play with each set and have a tone that will ring true to the audience with a message, she said.

“We created this as a safe haven and a space for them to be free, to not be judged by whatever their disability might be, whether that’s spina bifida, autism, hearing impaired, Down syndrome or paraplegic,” Palmer said. “They are capable of doing everything they want to do in this life, and that’s the space we create — a space with no limits to allow them to be anyone they want to be.

“For these participants, my whole goal is for each to feel free. To see, for one night, that they can truly be themselves and that they aren’t judged. It’s just so important, now five years in, that we are building something that will last lifetimes and live on through each participant and their families and the greater Flint community on the whole.”

Read more at The Flint Journal:

We Are Flint: Cancer warrior brings crown, light and hope back home

We Are Flint: The ‘Tamale Queen’ passes her crown down another generation

We Are Flint: Deonta Gaddy writes where the water flows

We Are Flint: Asa Ascensio-Zuccaro is a champion for the east side

We Are Flint: Fiorina Cade shows her children that superpowers are real

We Are Flint: Poetry never left, now the generations are coming together again

We Are Flint: Mural brings life to city’s north side, depicts generational ‘passing of torch’

We Are Flint: Jeff Skigh moves through life to the beat of his own music

We Are Flint: New pop/R&B duo brings the fun, finds traction on TikTok

We Are Flint: Urban beekeeper makes some of Michigan’s sweetest honey

We Are Flint: Deon Smith strives to make a positive impact with every interaction

We Are Flint: Couple’s bond grows stronger through running historic race