My breakfast yesterday at the Pierre hotel was no ordinary affair. First, in the lobby, I passed a Pierre resident, designer Tory Burch, with her three boys in tow, on their way to school.

Then I sat down in the ballroom for breakfast, where the meal alone is worthy of a paragraph. On my narrow, rectangular plate were three items, each no more than two bites: a soft scrambled hen egg with black truffle coulis, a quenelle-shaped salmon tartar served on a bagel chip and topped with crème fraiche, and chicken sausage on polenta, topped with a slice of apple, the latter being the item that looked to me most like breakfast, and thus, the one I ate.

What was all the fuss in the morning about? An important and worthy cause: Young Women’s Leadership Foundation, which later this year will change its name to Young Women’s Leadership Network. This is the organization founded by Ann Tisch to provide public single-sex education for girls. The program showcased several outgoing and poised students, who made videos about and introduced the event’s honorees: the High Water Women Foundation, Mayor Booker of Newark, the chairman and chief executive of Time Inc., Ann Moore, and the president of JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Kimberly Davis.

The schools are remarkably successful at sending students to college (as in, 100% success rate). One parent, Luisa Ferreria, has three daughters, all Young Women’s graduates, who are now enrolled at Wheaton College, Colgate University, and Haverford College.

agordon@nysun.com