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 On Your Plate
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| Looking west across the Hudson River towards New Jersey. 7:30 PM. Photo: JH. |
May 12, 2010. A sometimes sunny yesterday in New York, and sometimes not.
I went down to the Metropolitan Club where City Harvest was holding its annual On Your Plate fundraising lunch. They were honoring Silda Wall Spitzer, Founding Chair of Children for Children (you first read about it here, NYSD 4.17.11).
As last year’s honoree, I was selected to introduce Silda after which she spoke and then gathered a panel of school kids from New York City who have been involved with City Harvest, to talk about it.
If there is such a thing as a favorite charity, or rather, a charity that resonates, City Harvest does it for me. If you didn’t know, quickly: They collect more than 26 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food industry and deliver it free of charge to almost 600 community food programs. Using a fleet of trucks and bikes and volunteers on foot. Each week they help over 260,000 hungry New Yorkers find their next meal. |
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| Emilia Saint-Amand, Topsy Taylor, Betsy Bartlett, DPC, Joy Ingham, Anne Kitchens and Christine Pell. |
| DPC with Silda Wall Spitzer, Joy Ingham, and Jilly Stephens. |
We’re none of us all that far from the possibility of going hungry – which is not the same as “being” hungry – which is the state most of us live in. Going hungry is an assault on the body and a blow to our inner strength. Once going hungry, he or she is on dangerous path and knows it. Keeping us fed and nourished is an embrace and nurtures and provides the strength to hope, and protect us. City Harvest does all this.
Silda Spitzer has a full time job as the Managing Director of business development and strategic positioning at Metropolitan Capital Advisors. She is also involved with Children for Children, which is now part of Points of Light Institute/Hands On Network, engaging youth from all backgrounds in service and service learning.
As the wife of former Governor Elliot Spitzer she is a familiar figure to many New Yorkers. But few have had the opportunity to see her speak and share her interests. She’s disarming on first meeting because she is a lovely young woman with an interesting combination of a gentle demeanor and certainty of purpose.
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| Click above to watch video of Cruz Quinian telling the guests about the joys of driving one of the City Harvest trucks, and how it has affected his life. |
| On Your Plate at the Metropolitan Club. |
| The centerpiece. |
The dessert. |
Yesterday’s panel of school kids (8th and 9th grade, I think), were asked by Silda as moderator, about their involvement with gathering food for City Harvest and how they felt about service to their community. Their responses were impressive and an eye-opener to the audience of hundreds of men and women.
The panel discussion was Silda’s way of demonstrating the value of her organization’s objective – which is to give young people the opportunity to help others and automatically empower them, and automatically develop a strong sense of responsibility. Plus, we learned on yesterday’s panel, that these kids were doing many other things – like tutoring younger students – as well as mentoring and engaging others in the service work. |
| Erica Baruch, Avital Benson, Angelos Georgiadis, Irene Prentzas, Silda Wall Spitzer, Amanda Toporek, Alli Ruben, Eman Metwally, and Kalee Surace. |
| Amanda Toporek, Alli Rubin, Eman Metwally, and Kalee Surace. |
| Angelos Georgiadis, Irene Pretzas, Silda Wall Spitzer, and Jilly Stephens. |
| Avital Benson and Erica Baruch. |
The On Your Plate Luncheon is always good. Dr. Mehmet Oz spoke the year before last (NYSD 5.19.08), and now of course he’s become a media medic. This year we had a glimpse of a potentially better future for all of us, or the possibility of one. The guests left the luncheon enlightened.
What personally concerns me with the present state of things in the economy is that more and more people will be in need. This has already happened to all the food pantries and suppliers, as well as City Harvest. Hunger is the danger zone for all of us under stressful circumstances. Now is the time to give, to volunteer, to help. This is a way for us to help ourselves. |
| Robyn Stein and Pat Barrick. |
Stephanie Krieger and Christine Biddle. |
| Victoria Wyman, Bonnie Pfeiffer, and Lorna Graev. |
| Cetie Ames and Victoria Wyman. |
Muffie Potter Aston and Gillian Miniter. |
| Mildred Brinn and Susan Fales-Hill, and Daniel Colon. |
| Liz Peek and Roger Webster. |
Charlie Scheips and Wendy Moonan. |
| Margo Langenberg, Brian Stewart, and Kari Tiedemann. |
Renee Fishman. |
| Margo Langenberg, Coco Kopelman, and friend |
| William Ivey Long and Jackie Drake. |
Anna Kennedy, Eleanora Kennedy, and Alexandra Lebenthal. |
| Sassy Johnson and DPC. |
Joy Ingham and Hilary Califano. |
| Cruz Quinlan. |
Rochelle Hirsch, Michel Witmer, and Alison Minton. |
| Ward and Nico Landrigan. |
Gillian Miniter and Silda Wall Spitzer. |
Small world, New York. Leaving the luncheon, I walked a few blocks up Madison because vacant cabs were hard to come by. On 65th, one came around the corner from the west and I hailed it. When I got in the driver told me that he picked me up a few times in the morning at my address and taken me to 57th Street and Fifth (on my way to Michael’s). I was amazed by the coincidence and that he recognized me in a city of 17 million daily.
Driving a cab is a rough life in New York. They are the brunt of a lot of abuse and criticism not to mention the matter-of-fact nonsense that often comes with a fare that barks like a dog and quacks like a duck. There are not a few of those around. Think of it. And then they are often stiffed when it comes to the tip. Furthermore, the new system of credit cards in the taxis is a costly device for them too. Not to mention the nuisance monitor scam that all New Yorkers loathe (except the installers and licensers — and presumably the Taxi Commission).
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| Nawaz, my cabdriver today. |
I often use a cab running from one place to another over the course of a day or night. I rarely have a bad experience or an unpleasant driver. Frequently they’re not big personalities or charmers or even talkers. Not so infrequently they barely acknowledge you or are on the phone (I ask them to put it away). Just like anyone else you know these days? However, then there are the cheerful ones, like my driver today – his name is Nawaz (don’t know his last).
These are the people who have
some kind of relationship with the city. A lot of them are immigrants, often these days from the Middle Eastern, Asian or African countries. Sometimes the Caribbean and South America. I often ask them how long they’ve lived here and if they’ve lived anywhere else in the US. They are often longtime residents – ten, twenty, thirty years. And they love New York. Even with all the hardships it places on the working stiff. They love New York, and it’s a good ride. Like today’s.
Last night was a busy one in New York. Early in the evening Daisy and Paul Soros hosted a private reception for members of the Royal Shakespeare Company; hors d’oeuvres, drinks and a “Shakespearean Interlude.”
The occasion was in anticipation of the RSC coming to New York next July and August 2011 for a six week residency at the Armory.
They will perform in a full-scale replica of the award-winning Courtyard Theatre where the Company performs, a prototype of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
While down at Le Cirque, The American Friends of the Victoria and Albert Museum, chairman Diana Quasha and Henry Cornell hosted a dinner following the Maharaja Lecture.
And over at the Plaza, Hamish Bowles, Amy Fine Collins and Lorry Newhouse hosted a dinner honoring Carolina Herrera and Michael Bruno, the founder of 1st Dibs. The proceeds of the evening will help the children, teens and adult clients of Lighthouse International.
And I went up to the Café Carlyle to see Judy Collins. The room was filled with Judy Collins fans and as soon as she appeared on the small cabaret stage with her acoustic guitar, in her white silk dress and her amazing long white tresses and that angelic face, and the voice that assures a kind of respite. She takes you back to that place, that state of mind where you first heard her.
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It’s more a mood than a place; it’s youth, with all its romance, all its lingering permanence and sweet bittersweet. Haunting. Dreamlike for a moment in the Big Town years later. You can tell I liked it, right? I wasn’t alone, that’s for sure.
She’s there until June 12th. It’s about an hour fifteen, hour and a half. I’ve been listening to Judy Collins since she came onto the music scene big time in the Sixties. Her material has varied with the changing times but the voice is what makes it all magic. So it’s interesting to see the woman’s progress as a reflection of your own lives. And such a pleasure. |
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