Publicolor, the nonprofit that organizes after-school painting programs, invited guests at its April 10 benefit to get their hands dirty and create colorful tables. Clad in white jumpsuits and armed with paintbrushes, attendees at the “Stir, Splatter, and Roll” fund-raiser at Louis D. Brandeis High School on the Upper West Side got a chance to work alongside artists and designers including Kate and Andy Spade, David Rockwell, Michele Oka Doner, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude.Each year, Publicolor founder Ruth Lande Shuman recruits artistic types to participate in the event. “We work with people who support our mission and who are really making a difference in their field through design,” she said. “It’s terribly important for our funders to get inside a public school and see the students in their environment.”
With plenty of other nods to painting in the food and decor, the event pulled in $1.25 million to fund the organization’s work, a figure double the amount raised last year.
—Alana Klein
Posted 04.16.07
Photos: Anna Persson Herbst for BizBash
With plenty of other nods to painting in the food and decor, the event pulled in $1.25 million to fund the organization’s work, a figure double the amount raised last year.
—Alana Klein
Posted 04.16.07
Photos: Anna Persson Herbst for BizBash
All attendees at the event could put white jumpsuits on over their party clothes and paint tabletops alongside school children. Publicolor later auctioned the tables off; one fetched more than $3,000.
For the dinner portion of the event, guests sat amongst basketball hoops and scoreboards in the school’s gym.
Paint cans filled with tissue paper, glow-in-the-dark necklaces, paint rollers, used paint brushes, and stir sticks served as centerpieces.
Culinary nods to the painting theme included brush-shaped cookies as well as a paint-can-shaped cake.
New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein—who spoke about the importance of educational access for all children—received an award for helping to improve public education.
