Read our interview with Emma Heming Willis below.
This week, Room to Grow held their annual spring fundraiser at Gustavino’s on 59th street. The organization serves families from just before their child’s birth through age three. It provides individualized parenting education and support, high-quality material items, and specialized referrals to vital community resources to ensure a healthy and secure start in life. Amongst the guests were Mary-Louise Parker, Emma Heming Willis and her husband Bruce Willis, along with M. Night Shyamalan and Kristen Taekman.
Room to Grow exceeded their goal for the night and raise more than $550K. The event featured a live and silent auction. Guests could bid on a grand selection of prizes including big prize where the winner could choose between a safari in Kenya and Tanzania, a cruise and tour of vineyards in France and more.
“This is the first direct benefit that I have attended where I was a hostess, but it was a charity that all New Yorkers are aware of because it’s so practical and it’s so easy to support you don’t need a lot of resources yourself and I remember thinking years ago that is really brilliant, who came up with that so it has always been something that I appreciated on the sidelines and supported myself with donations but this is the first time I have been able to show up. I have to leave early to catch a plane but it was that important to me because I just love what they do so much. It’s so moving and I think Emma is just a deeply good person and I wanted to support her,” Mary-Louise Parker told us on the red carpet.
We got the chance to speak with Co-Chair Emma Heming:
Tell us about tonight’s event?
Tonight we are raising money for Room to Grow. An event like this is so important because it will help keep the doors open so that the clinicians can keep seeing families and they make such an impact on these families and these babies. Nights like these are very important. We hope for a generous crowd and we had a great turn out last year and a great outcome last year.
As the Co-Chair, do you have any goals for the future of the charity?
Just that it thrives. I’m Co-Chair but I’m also an ambassador so it’s important for me to get out there and do other small events for Room to Grow to just try and get their name out there as much as possible. We just want to keep it moving forward.
Can you give us any highlights from last year?
It was such a great room of people and everyone could really feel the love in the room, which I really loved. I hope it will be the same this year, which I feel it already is. I feel like when people come out for an event for charity, they’re walking in with love.
Credit: Bryan Anton/Room To Grow
