What You Wear May Help Those in Need

Imagine this: You’re standing in a crowd of hundreds, watching a bunch of bikini-clad models glide down a runway, screaming for two live bands, and finally dancing your butt off to a DJ’s beats.

And it’s all for a good cause.

Welcome to Billabong’s “Design for Humanity” project, an art-inspired night of celebration benefiting a charity that strikes close to home for the sand and surf-minded.

This year, the event is taking place at the Avalon/Bardot Club in Hollywood on June 17. The night will feature a Billabong swimsuit fashion show, two live bands including Iglu & Hartley, and finish off with a live DJ spinning beats.

The 21-and-over event, now in its third year, will donate proceeds to charity: water, a nonprofit organization that provides safe, clean, pure drinking water to people in developing nations. The charity was launched in 2006, and has already begun projects to provide clean water to 14 different nations.

According to “Design for Humanity,” these water-purifying projects will provide over 665,000 people with the clean drinking water that they would otherwise have to go without.

We don’t often think about these little luxuries we are provided with, and “Design for Humanity” is a way to ensure we don’t take them for granted.

Best of all, attendees of the event can bid in a silent auction for art pieces from some pretty famous names. Even if you can’t make it out to the west coast in time for the show, you can still donate by making a pretty sweet purchase. Tori Praver, model and face of Billabong, has helped create the “Tori Praver Design for Humanity bikini,” which will be available in surf shops and swim boutiques this month. Five bucks from every sale will be donated to charity:water.

Tickets go on sale for “Design for Humanity” on May 27.

Righteous.