The Kids Are All Right: Planet Awesome Kid/Global Action for Children on style.com

From style.com:

As nice as it was here in New York, plenty of fashion folks with children (David Neville and Gucci Westman, Jenna Lyons, and host Mary Alice Stephenson) spent Saturday afternoon inside at Milk Gallery at a fundraiser held by Planet Awesome Kid. The Web site is one part The Sartorialist for the under-12 set and another part party planner, and the beneficiary of the event was Global Action for Children, a charity whose honorary chair is Angelina Jolie. She and Brad weren’t in attendance, but there were models (like Dorothea Barth Jorgensen, pictured) and A-listers (Brooke Shields included) for moms and dads to ogle, while the kids watched break dancing by Kid Flash and Full Circle Soul, painted alongside the world-famous graffiti artist Aero, or got spotted for a fashion campaign. No word on whether it was coincidence or kismet that a KCD employee casting tots for a Benetton ad took a break from work upstairs to check out the party.
—Nicole Phelps
Photo: Craig Arend

Global Action for Children - Saturday March 20 at Milk Gallery

Original artwork by Andy Ness, made of fabric and other materials.

Interview with Betty Sze of models.com and Julia Samersova of Global Action For Children:

We chatted with casting director Julia Samersova about her big Global Action for Children event coming up for Saturday, March 20th. With Angelina Jolie as the honorary chairperson of GAC and the event hosted by Mary Alice Stephenson and Milk Studios, GAC is definitely the charity to keep your eye on. While Angelina won’t be there expect some of the industry’s heavy hitters to come and experience the special events planned for their little ones.

What is Global Action for Children?

Global Action for Children generates awareness, policies and funding so every child has the chance to grow up safe and healthy.

What are your main goals for Saturday’s event?
The main goal is to raise awareness and money for GAC, and to have an amazing time doing it! All of the decor, activities and games have been created to entertain, educate, and inspire the children at a level that can only be describe as AWESOME.

There are quite a few models who are activists (Natalia Vodianova, Liya Kebede, Christy Turlington etc) as well as mothers. Why do you think becoming a mother changes them? Why do think it’s important for these models to become “role” models?

Motherhood puts life into a different perspective and allows you to view and deal with life’s challenges in a brand new way. Patience is the key ingredient in parenthood and in an industry such as fashion, it can certainly come as a refreshing change of pace. These Supermodel Mommies have an amazing platform to speak out on the behalf of a whole range of causes. It’s an amazing position these women are in: very powerful and used properly, very helpful to those who have no voice in this world.

Since becoming a mother a year and a half ago, what has changed about the fashion industry for you?
What has changed is my perception of what is truly an “emergency” versus a “fashion emergency”! It has been amazing to learn to be this “other” person. After a long hard day of work, I am fortunate enough to go home to this little creature and really get my priorities in order. It is a very difficult balance to strike, being a working woman in a demanding industry and a mother and a wife. I have a lot more patience now and that is a good thing

Click here for the invitation or to donate.

Thank You Alexander Wang & Katie Grand

Alexander Wang & Katie Grand threw the best party I have ever been to on Saturday September 12th and the gas station on 15th street and 10th Avenue.

Everything was free! Candy, Diet Coke, Vitamin Water.

I woke up the next morning with a purse full of Oh Henry! candy bars. Oh Henry! candy bars were my favorite treat from the snack bar at the Marjorie Post Community pool in the 1980's.

inside my purse:


The music was incredible.....Courtney Love, Spankrock & Santogold performed.

As we were leaving the DJ played my favorite song from the summer of 1993: "Show me love" by Robin S:

A.M. Homes, Photo: Robert Nethery

Robert Nethery photographed author A.M. Homes for Wishful Thinkers, a limited edition book & gallery show at Milk Gallery. Proceeds from sales of the book & prints exhibited at Milk Gallery benefited FINCA International.

Wishful Thinkers is a project by Blackstar, a new design collective founded by creative director Marie Suter and photographer Viki Forhsee, to benefit the Foundations for International Community Assistance. FINCA International's mission is to provide financial services to low-income entrepreneurs in an effort to help create jobs, build assets and improve standards of living. Started in 1984, the microcredit organization reaches nearly a quarter of a million clients in more than twenty countries. FINCA International lends primarily to women in accordance with the belief that the surest and most direct way to improve the welfare of the world's children is to bolster their mother's ability to care for them.

-Melinda Anderson

Wishful Thinkers - A.M. Homes & Jennifer Venditti

According to Wikipedia, The Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA International) is a non-profit, microfinance organization, founded by John Hatch in 1984. Sometimes referred to as the "World Bank for the Poor" and a "poverty vaccine for the planet", FINCA is the innovator of the village banking methodology in microcredit and is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of modern day microfinance.



Milk Gallery is hosting "Wishful Thinkers", a photography show of 50 Inspirational Women, to benefit FINCA International tonight, between 7 to 10pm.

Filmmaker & Casting Director Jennifer Venditti is amongst the 50 Inspirational Women photographed for "Wishful Thinkers". Her debut film, Billy The Kid, won numerous awards, including the Jury Prize at the South by Southwest Festival.



Author A.M. Homes was photographed by Robert Nethery for Wishful Thinkers. A.M. Homes is the author of the novels, This Book Will Save Your Life, Music for Torching , The End of Alice, In a Country of Mothers , and Jack , as well as the short-story collections, Things You Should Know and The Safety of Objects , the travel memoir, Los Angeles: People, Places, and the Castle on the Hill , and the artist's book Appendix A. I've written before how much the books & short stories of A.M. Homes mean to me.