Bagels and Inspiration at Women’s Breakfast
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
With 2,400 female guests filling the New York Hilton’s ballroom, among them some of the city’s most generous philanthropists, the collective wealth at the New York Women’s Foundation’s Celebrating Women Breakfast yesterday was great indeed.
But in a few moments, the wealth became nothing compared to the spirit and sacrifice of a group of women from Uganda who took the stage to be honored for pooling their earnings from quarry work and sending $1,000 to families displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
“Thank you, women of New York,” they sang together. “We love to be sisters together. We welcome you to Uganda. We really need help from you.”
The women at the event heeded their call by buying necklaces they’d made; some women bought more than a dozen, for themselves and to give as gifts.
The president of the New York Women’s Foundation, Ana Oliveira, summed up the sentiment of those New York women gathered.
“These women of Uganda, they have taught me what it means, the purity of heart, the freedom from fear, the freedom from the fear of insignificance,” Ms. Oliveira said.
While inspiration isn’t in quite as high supply on most early mornings in Midtown Manhattan (the breakfast started at 7:30 a.m.), it is a reliable presence at this annual event.
And the event makes inspiring work possible all year long. The New York Women’s Foundation this year alone has granted $2 million to nonprofits including the Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective, Domestic Workers United, Girls for Gender Equity Inc., the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, and the Sauti Yetu Center for African Women. It is also working on a report to be released in June on the status of women in New York State.
Ms. Oliveira noted that 85% of the organizations the foundation has funded are “strong and thriving.”
The breakfast also honored the founder and president of the White House Project, Marie Wilson, and CNN’s chief international correspondent based in New York, Christiane Amanpour.
Ms. Amanpour told a story illustrating the benefits of having women in power.
“I cast my first vote for a woman, for Margaret Thatcher,” as prime minister of Britain, she said. “It was Thatcher who told Reagan it was okay to do business with Mikhail Gorbachev. It took a woman.”
