Check It hits the runway

WaPo reports:

The masked fashion models marched onto the stage with fists pumping and feet stomping in unison, music blaring, before all 15 crouched in silence. One by one, to the sounds of explosions, they leaped up to share their experiences with rough city life as gang members.

One started stealing cars when she was 13, then lived on the streets and sold drugs before getting locked up for armed robbery at 17. Another had been sexually abused and raped. One was neglected by parents who were addicted to crack cocaine....

The young men and women are members of Check It, a gay crew that started in the Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast, and its sister gang, Unexpected....

But on Saturday night, Check It and Unexpected members tried to show a different side to their personalities by hosting “Fashion Transformation,” a fashion show at the D.C police department’s Boys and Girls Club on Shepherd Street NW, where they unveiled their own T-shirt designs and showed off their modeling talents and dance moves.

Good for them, and good luck to them. We wrote about them here.