This year, disaster relief became one of Baby2Baby’s top priorities, including responding to the Maui wildfires and ultimately sending 600,000 items to Hawaii, or 50 million items to children under the disaster relief program overall. “We had actually delivered diapers, wipes and other hygiene items to the Hawaii Diaper Bank the day before the fire broke out,” says Weinstein. “And that made us feel so fortunate because in the middle of the disaster, when there was so much chaos and so many organizations from all over the world trying to help the families on Maui, we already had it there.”
At the same time, Sawyer Patricof and Weinstein are also focusing on a new pilot program launching jointly with the White House and HHS that will distribute 3,000 newborn and maternal kits in Arkansas, Louisiana and New Mexico (states with the highest poverty and maternal mortality rates), with a goal to offer the kits to every new mother in need across the country. Funding the lofty goal is the current focus: join the gala.
The evening, which was held at the Pacific Design Center and raised more than $12 million, had a lot in store for the several hundred guests. First, a cocktail and social hour under a disco ball-lit room and a silent auction with a Paris Fashion Week Trip with Chanel and a private dinner with Los Angeles Chef Evan Funke on the docket. For anyone who didn’t bag the $20,000 treat, the gala’s dinner situation was the next best thing, with celebrity chefs Jon and Vinny bringing the best of their peers into one room, and restaurants like Funke , mr. Chow and Kato each with their own market style station guests could drop by whenever they wanted. Those who stopped by the Goop Kitchen station were in for a surprise, with Gwyneth Paltrow herself behind the stall, serving up chilled oysters.
On stage, Kim Kardashian opened the sit-down portion of the evening, Zooey Deschanel initiated a bidding war, and Channing Tatum, who introduced the evening’s honoree, Salma Hayek Pinault (“I have so much respect for this organization, and i ‘I don’t respect many organizations,’ Hayek Pinault would later say), joked that the actress is iconic From sunset to sunrise scene ruined tequila for him. Later, sister duo Sofia and Nicole Richie prepared the crowd for Snoop Dogg’s performance of all his classics before everyone dispersed for the afterparty.
