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Demetris Smith strutted down the mock runway last week with an air of confidence, playing to the crowd of about 100 flanked on either side of him as the 55-year-old made a sharp turn, playfully tugged off his leather jacket and swung it over his shoulder.

The swagger hasn't always been there for Smith, not when lesions and scabs covered his body and face, a symptom of the AIDS virus he lives with. Not in the six days he spent in the Superdome in New Orleans in 2005, alongside thousands of other residents who like him had lost everything they had in Hurricane Katrina.

But with an outfit worth about $20 — equal to everything he owned when he transplanted to Silver Spring in 2005 "with only the clothes on my back," he says — Smith, a former teen model, walked down the "runway" set up near the cash registers at the Unique Thrift Store in Silver Spring last week a fortunate man.

"When you're in need like I was, you have no business having pride," Smith said Dec. 9 after the second annual Unique Thrift Store Fashion Show, celebrating the New Hampshire Avenue store's donation of $100,000 in gift certificates to area nonprofits and schools. "But the more humble you are, the more assistance you will receive."

About 80 organizations receive Unique Thrift Store's gift certificates, including 57 Montgomery County Public Schools and the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission, which helped Smith find housing and furniture in Silver Spring after he was displaced by Katrina.

When the hurricane hit, Smith's entire apartment building crumbled. He found his five-foot-six frame in more than six feet of water. Smith cannot swim.

So in what he calls "an act of divine mercy," he waded to a nearby bridge and waited for help. He spent six days in the Superdome football stadium, a temporary holding center overwhelmed by thousands of displaced residents.

"I never want to go through another horrific experience like that," Smith said. "It was like the end of the world.

"We were abandoned and forgotten."

After being transported to another holding center in Texas, he arranged to meet up with friends receiving assistance in Washington, D.C. He left behind friends and family, some survivors, some deceased, and arrived in D.C. with only the clothes he wore the day Katrina struck.

Through HOC and the Red Cross, he was able to find and furnish a home in Silver Spring. Last year, he signed up to model in the first Unique Thrift Store fashion show, which he heard about through HOC.

The fashion show features 13 models, from infants to seniors, all of whom are affiliated with the benefiting organizations or agencies. They all wear clothes from the thrift store, with the outfits costing an average of $20 each.

"That blue button-down brings out the subtle colors in the sweater, not to mention that smile," Montgomery County Council President Nancy Floreen (D-At-large) of Garrett Park, the emcee of the event, announced excitedly as 43-year-old Rockville resident Tony Chase, a recovering drug and alcohol abuser, walked down the runway.

The runway was marked only by rows of folding chairs flanking a long stretch of tile floor near the front of the store. Christmas trees for sale provided the barrier between the runway and audience and "backstage area," which was a storage closet. One by one the models rushed confidently out onto the catwalk, sashaying and drawing oohs and ahhs from the crowd.

"My stomach was full of butterflies, that was scary," said Chase, who has now been sober for two years and was assisted in regaining custody of his children through Family Services Inc., a Gaithersburg-based nonprofit that is a recipient of the gift certificates.

This is the third year Unique Thrift Store is donating $100,000 in gift certificates, which can be redeemed at any Unique Thrift Store or Value Village location in the county. It's a way to give back to the community but do so in a way that puts a face on the recipients, noted County Executive Isiah Leggett, who spoke at the event.

"We have needs that are unprecedented," said Leggett (D). "But we have to keep in mind how we serve the needs of the county. We have to do it with respect and dignity. "

Demetris Smith wouldn't have it any other way.