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The
New York Child Learning Institute’s Design, a
cocktail party and auction to benefit autism
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Bobby
and Jill Zarin
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Yfke
Sturm and Imad Izemrane
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Fred
Appel, Christopher Weldon, and Jim Watkins
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Eva
Dillon and Harry Heissmann
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Big
hearted guests and generous friends of The New York Child Learning
Institute (NYCLI) filled the Mount
Vernon Hotel Museum for
a silent auction and Champagne Veuve Clicquot fueled cocktail party to support
education for autistic children. There was a program featuring WB11
anchor Jim Watkins as emcee, Mario Buatta as the Honoree, and NYCLI’s director Sue
Vener. Lauren Watkins, a former CNN anchor and mother, produced and premiered
a sensitive video that illustrated the good work being done and the happy faces
of the children who are helped daily at the school.
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Eileen
Ekstract and Michèle Gerber Klein with a Richard
Mishaan Pillow
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Celebrity interior designers including Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Thom Filicia, Alexa Hampton, Jamie Drake, Mark Epstein, Harry Heissmann for Albert
Hadley, Lisa Jackson and Richard Mishaan joined Jason Bell,
Sam Blount, Laura Bohn, Richard Carpenter, Eric Cohler, Christopher Coleman,
Jackie Colliton, John
Danzer, Barclay Fryery, Susan Zises Green, Elaine Griffin, Rodney Lawrence, Jack
Levy, Todd Moore, Liz Orenstein, Barbara Ostrom, Katie Ridder, Randy Ridless
and Beth Martell, James Rixner, Scott Salvator, Roderick Shade, Matthew Patrick
Smyth, Katherine Stephens, Stephanie Stokes, Michael Tavano, Priscilla Ulmann,
Ken Wampler, and Kelly Wearstler to volunteer their
skills and time to transform
luxurious fabrics donated by F. Schumacher & Co. into pillows for the silent
auction, dubbed Pillow Talk.
The Event Chairs
were Deborah Antar, Stephanie Halberian and Oren
Warshavsky. The
Junior Chairs were Lydia Hearst-Shaw, Gillian Hearst-Shaw
and Annie Churchill.
T. Keller Donovan was the Design Chair and Phillip Alden Thomas was
the Junior
Design Chair. Christopher Weldon, NYCLI’s Executive Director,
was on hand
to thank the many supporters.
The auction also included over 100 other items such as a two-night stay at
Manhattan’s
Bentley Hotel with dinner for two at the Triangolo Restaurant and a baseball
signed by Roger Clemens. Free haircuts from the Roy Teeluck Salon on East 57th
Street were given to supporters and ticket buyers.
Among the over 400 guests enjoying the hors d’oeuvres, bouquets of flowers
donated by Stems New York, and shopping in New York City’s only surviving
19th-century hotel with its spacious outdoor garden and views of the Queensboro
Bridge were: City Councilwoman Christine Quinn; Tony Award winning costume designer
William Ivey Long; rocker Joan Jett and her manager Kenny
Laguna; Elite Celebrities
model Yfke Sturm; interior design wunderkind Stephen
Siegel; the original “Bachelor” Alex
Michel; Committee Members CeCe Cord with her dog Tiger,
Eva Dillon, Michèle
Gerber Klein, Jill and Bobby Zarin, Sotheby’s Royce Pinkwater with her
son Jonathan Kohana, Christine Schott, and Katherine
Rothman; Lehman Brothers’ Fred
Appel, William Goodman, NY Post’s Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, Sarah Horne, Imad
Izemrane, Janice Langrall, Eileen Ekstract and Amy Tambini.
Other Committee Members included Cornelia Guest, Alexandra Lind Rose, Milly de
Cabrol, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Katie Kinnell, Susannah Beams, Andrew Black, Lauren
Anderson, Toby Cobrin, John Frank, Dan and Barbara McNulty, Jane Sherwin, Debbie
Van Cura, Gillian Hardin, Thomas Hindert, Robert Watman and Larisa Bond.
Corporate and Participating Sponsors included Elle Décor, the Law Firm
of Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan Griffinger and Vecchione, Ladies' Home Journal, Paul
Colliton Studios and Time Warner.
It was the perfect spring event and one hundred percent of the proceeds went
to benefit the autistic children at NYCLI. Congratulations to everyone. |
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L.
to r.: Jim Watkins, Joan Jett, and Lauren Thierry
Watkins; Stephen Siegel and Lisa Jackson; Mark Epstein,
Jonathan
Kohana, and Royce Pinkwater.
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William
Goodwin, Yfke Sturm, Imad Izemrane, and Christine Schott
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Joan
Jett, Oren Warshavsky, and Kenny Laguna
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Deborah
Antar and NYCLI Executive Director Christopher Weldon
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Jim
Watkins and Oren Warshavsky
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Chris
Weldon and Joan Jett
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CeCe
Cord and Tiger
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William
Ivey Long and Mario Buatta
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| Photographs
by Chance Yeh/PMc |
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