Jorge Rosario, Roberto Dutesco, Louise Jones, Linda Argila, Bonnie Comley, Stewart F. Lane, and Kirsten Cole at ARTrageous 2012 Gala Dinner and Art Auction

Catching up. Two Wednesdays ago, Mark Gilbertson hosted his annual Spring cocktail party at a local club on Park Avenue. There were about 250 guests, many of whom know each other through the host’s work on several major charities. So it is one of those ideal lists where people see a lot of familiar faces, as well as friends and also new faces.

Frederic and Shirin Fekkai, Bruce and Therese Colley, and Peter Georgiopoulos

Edmundo Huerta, Mary McFadden, Margo Langenberg, and Eric Javits

Elizabeth de Kergolay, Gregorio dal Pozzo, Rachel Hovnanian, and Graziano de Boni

Donald and Muffy Miller, Alex Hitz, and Lisa Fine

Victoria Lindgren, Geoffrey Bradfield, Lynne Westcott, and Helena Lehane

Marjorie Gubelmann, Kate Etter, Susan Burch, and Tory Burch

Mark likes the traditional hors d’oeuvres: pigs in a blanket, smoked salmon, Spring rolls and more of the same – always greeted with tireless, reaching hands.

Calvert and George Moore

Hillie Mahoney, Marc de Bary, and Mary McFadden

Jeff Sharp and Doug Steinbrech

Charlie and Sara Ayres with Lesley and David Schulhof

Margo Langenberg and Yaz Hernandez

Lizzie Brown, Martha de Castillo, George Moore, and Sara Ayres

Vicky Ward and Caryn Zucker

Lise Arliss, Bruce Addison, and Monique Merrill

Mary van Pelt and Zibby Tozer

Leslie Stevens, Walter Deane, and Julie Dannenberg

Eric Villency and Caroline Fare

Sloan Overstrom, Ellen Niven Deery, and Claudia Overstrom

Caroline Fare and Eric Villency

Marco Scaroni and James Creel

Thorne and Tatiana Perkin

Melissa and Chappy Morris

Robert Fomon, Jill Fairchild, and Alex Navab

Elizabeth and Richard Miller

Webb Egerton and Martha Glass

Merrill and Ashton Curtis

Nicole Hanley Mellon and Allie Mellon

Barbara Cates, Tom McCarter, and Margo Langenberg

Tom McCarter, Zibby Tozer, and Donald Miller

Peter van Ingen and Patricia Duff

Robert Lindgren and Tom Gibb

Georgina Schaeffer

Kathy and Othon Prounis

Michael Cominotto and Dennis Basso

Helen and Tim Schifter

Andrew and Jill Roosevelt

Emilia and Elisabeth Saint-Amand

Sam Dangremond and Lizzie Brown

Gregory and Annabelle Fowlkes

Charles and Clo Cohen with Andrew and Heather Georges

Hilary Dick and Betsy Pitts

Michael Cominotto and Bettina Zilkha

Helene Lehane, Sam Bolton, and Tara Rockefeller

Nina Richter and Mark Gilbertson

Geoffrey Bradfield, Lynne Westcott, and Roric Tobin

Mary Hilliard and Mario Buatta

Cindy Ketchum and Katie Tozer

John Glass

Lala and Porter Fleming

Simone Mailman, Larry Creel, and Betsy Pitts

Libby Fitzgerald and Lisa McCarthy

Eugene Williams, CeCe Cord, and Bruce Addison

Jill Roosevelt and George Farias

Lisa Fine, Hilary Dick, and Marina Rust Connor

Kate and Chris Allen

Allison and Peter Rockefeller with Anne Colley

Edmundo Huerta and Barbara Regna

Helen Shifter, Drew Schiff, and Tara Rockefeller

Kamie Lightburn with Ted and Julia Weld

Thom Filicia, Jared Goss, and Michael Foster

Somers Farkas and Randy Kemper

Ray Jarrels

Amy Hoadley and Robert Levy

Alexia Hamm Ryan, Wendy Carduner, and Kamie Lightburn

Rachel and Ara Hovnanian

Polly Onet, Kristen Krusen, and Danielle Tosi

Christopher and Grace Meigher

Brad Comisar

David and Melanie Holland

Jennifer Creel, Alexia Hamm Ryan, and Ashley McDermott

Ara Hovnanian, Valerie Post, and Maria Villalba

Wright and Valerie Ohstrom

John Paulson and Charlie Krusen

Amanda Taylor and Nathalie Kaplan

Valesca Guerrand Hermes, Frederick Anderson, and Rachel Hovnanian

Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos and Simone Mailman

Blair Clark, Randy Kemper, and Frances Schultz

Louis and Alex Rose

Hilary Geary Ross and Mark Gilbertson

Courtney Arnot and Whitney Fairchild

The following day, May 24th, The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC), the world’s first child protection agency, held its Annual Junior Committee Spring Benefit on May 24, 2012 at Dream Downtown on West 16th Street. A hundred fifty of the city’s young professionals attended. Guests included Dawne Marie Grannum, Dr. Penny Grant, Divya Narendra (CEO, SumZero), Alexandra Papanicolaou (President Elect, The NYSPCC Junior Committee), Tatiana Perkin (Board Member, The NYSPCC), Dr. Mary Pulido (Executive Director, The NYSPCC), Frank Sommerfield (Board Member, The NYSPCC), Victor de Souza (Designer), Abby Vietor Sullivan (President, The NYSPCC Junior Committee), Anna Skjevesland and Marc Biron. More than 250 cases of child abuse are reported every day in New York City – and that is only what is reported. In response to this daunting issue, The NYSPCC’s members each year to raise essential funds for the efforts of the agency to help children heal from abuse and neglect, and to help families grow stronger. The beneficiary of this fund-raiser is the NYSPCC’s Trauma Recovery Program.

Linette Semino, Matt Semino, and Lisa Lori

Marc Lewinstein, Dawne Marie Grannum, Sabrina Martin, and Simon Gerson

Maureen Nash, Emily Meyer, and Eliza Scott

Stephen Forrester and Mary Pulido

Allison Twiss and Josh Naftalis

Caitlin Brinkman Stephanie Kocur, and Justine Santaniello

Dr Penny Grant, Victor de Souza, Kathleen Giordano, and Joy Marks

Bruce Edefeldt and Lauren Matina

Tatiana and Thorne Perkin

Anne Truong, Rachel Koser, Jeremy Frankel, and Maria Pruss

Greg Holzmann and Kerry O'Day

Ashley Perkin, Richard Perkin, and Caitlin Landy

Jason Wu, Frank Letini, Christopher Elezaj, and Frank Sommerfield

Charles Warren, Alexandra Papanicolaou, Bill Kelly, Kara Gerson, and Simon Gerson

Alexis Blais, Kelly Scholtz, and Joanna Scholtz

This past Monday night at Cipriani Wall Street, ARTrageous hosted its Gala Dinner + Art Auction, honoring Roberto Dutesco, Louise Jones and Bonnie Comley and Stewart F. Lane.

Daniel Dutesco, Roberto Dutesco, John Dutesco, and Valerie Dutesco

After the presentation, dinner and a live auction, Donna D’Cruz was there to provide the music for dancing for the black tie crowd.

Debra and Gregg Wasser

Rachel Hovnanian

Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley

William Cohen and Anne Bezamat-Cohen

Louise Jones

Anthony Haden-Guest

Kirsten Cole

Linda Mason and David Dumas

Stewart F. Lane, Bonnie Comley, and Michael Cerease

Jeff and Kim Arsenault

Donna D'Cruz

James Zemaitis and Yung-Hee Kim

Vincent du Vigneaud, Linda Argila,and Aubrey Featherstone

Linda Argila, Diane Krichmier, and Joan Argila

Randall Brockett and Chesarina Ferro

Luis and Irene Leo

Clement and Sara Pascal

Dominick D'Alleva and Robin Coffer

Daisy Joplin

Alexandra and Daniel Roubeni

A few weeks ago at at the Museum of Arts and Design Barbara Tober,Chairman Emerita and Chairman, Global Leadership Council of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, and Quest's Chris Meigher hosted a cocktail party and book launch in honor of a new coffee-table book entitled "Giving Back" by Meera Gandhi. Meera Gandhi, the CEO and Founder of The Giving Back Foundation, features people and charitable organizations in the book who have inspired her and her foundation for their unique ways of giving back to humanity.

Meera Gandhi

Mrs. Cherie Blair has written the foreword to the book. Among those featured in the "Giving Back" book are Mother Teresa and her Asha Daan; Bono and his fight to cure Aids in Africa; Centrepoint: The American Friends of the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry for its involvement with the homeless; designers Emre Erturk, Donna Karan, Urban Zen and Narciso Rodriguez; Hip Hop producers Charles and Randy Fisher; Homayra Sellier of Innocence in Danger of Paris; Steven Rockefeller and the Grameen Foundation; Irish interior designer Clodagh for Thorntree and Irish tenor Ronan Tynan for his work on behalf of Alzheimer's Disease in Ireland; Kerry Kennedy and her brother Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for their human rights and environmental activities; The Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val Kill, Hyde Park, NY; Paris: Peter Raj Singh and Lord Loomba of the Loomba Fund for widows; TV broadcaster Deborah Norville for her involvement with The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Children; figure skating Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi and her Always Dream Foundation; actress Patricia Valesquez and The Wayuu Taya Foundation in Latin America; Somers Farkas and the Lighthouse for the Blind; Kids For Kids in Hong Kong; Tails of Hope Advancing veterinary and human comparative medicine; St. Michael's Girls' Hostel in New Delhi, India, and many more. 100 percent of the book's proceeds will go to The Giving Back Foundation and its associated charities.

Richard Turley, Lucia Hwong Gordon, Jean Shafiroff, Ike Ude, Chau-Giang Thi Nguyen, and Vivek Mathe

The Giving Back Foundation, with operations in Hong Kong, New York, London and Mumbai, was established in 2010 by Meera Gandhi, with the support of her husband Vikram, as a not-for-profit, 501 (C) (3) organization. Its beneficiaries are carefully selected existing charities and individuals from around the world, with special emphasis on women and children in need. Directly assisting education of women and children, and addressing illness, poverty and suffering are the primary activities of the Foundation, whose motto is, "We are to the universe only as much as we give back to it." The Giving Back coffee-table book is available on Amazon.com and in NYC at Chartwell Booksellers, The Corner Bookstore, Crawford Doyle Booksellers, Rizzoli Bookstore, and St. Mark's Bookshop. It can also be purchased at TheGivingBackFoundation.net [1]. The new book was launched with events in New Delhi, Istanbul and Hong Kong and will be introduced at book signings in London and Dubai in the next few months.

Barbara Tober, Chris Meigher, and Meera Gandhi

Fern Mallis and Pia Ganguly

Randy and Charles Fisher

Laurie Dolphin, John McCaffrey, and Allison Meierding

Cassandra Seidenfeld and Maggie Norris

Juan Bernal and Meera Gandhi

Lavelle Olexa and Fern Mallis

Pedro Castillo, Barbara Tober, and Margaret Castillo

Reverend Timothy Shaw

Alozie Etufugh, Elizabeth De Leon, and Neil Bhargava

Ambassador Shariar Gianfranco Rahimi, and Owen Liu

Aruna Bhargava, Sujata Prakash, and Pravina Drover

Countess Tatiana Bobrinskoy and Tatiana Grant

Somers Farkas and Barbara Tober

Chris Meigher, Grace Meigher, Heidi Canellopoulos, and Barbara de Portago

Richard Turley, Chau-Giang Thi Nguyen, and Vivek Mather

Patty Raynes and Cassandra Seidenfeld

Also on Thursday, May 24, 2012 The Children’s Storefront hosted its Annual Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament at Slate NYC. Players came together from the New York financial and business worlds in support of the Storefront including Jan Gunnar Solli (celebrity DJ and New York Red Bulls professional soccer player). Storefront Trustees Steve Logan, Andrew Wiener, Ray Cameron and Bob Rylee made up the Poker Committee, along with Jeff Muti, Teresa Principe and Josh Eisenberg. Former Giant’s football star O.J. Anderson was also in attendance. The Children’s Storefront currently serves 174 preschool through eighth grade students. Now in its 46th year, the Storefront is strongly committed to educating children who face many obstacles. Eighty percent of the families served live at poverty level. The Children’s Storefront graduates go on to attend excellent private, parochial and alternative high schools in far greater numbers than students from other schools in Harlem and the South Bronx.

Steve Logan, Tuhina De O'Connor, and Ray Cameron

Shaeina Bailey and Chris Swinney

Andrea Logan and John Chiang

Wendy Reynoso, O.J. Anderson (former NY Giant), Andrew Wiener, and O.J.'s Manager Gene

Michelle Marks and Nejla Nourai

Jan Gunnar Solli

Photographs by Cutty McGill (Gilbertson); PatrickMcMullan.com (ARTrageous); Annie Watt (NYSPCC)