This year, disaster relief became among Baby2Baby’s top priorities, responding, for example, to the Maui wildfires and ultimately sending 600,000 items to Hawaii, or 50 million items to children across its disaster relief program in total. “We had actually made a delivery of diapers, wipes, and other hygiene items to the Hawaii Diaper Bank the day before the fires broke out,” Weinstein says. “And we felt so fortunate about that because in the midst of the disaster when there was so much chaos and so many organizations from around the world were trying to help the families on Maui, we already had those there.”
Simultaneously, Sawyer and Weinstein are also focused on a new pilot program launched with the White House and HHS that will distribute 3,000 newborn and maternal kits across Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico (states with the highest poverty and maternal mortality rates), with a goal of offering the kits to any new mom in need countrywide. Fund the lofty goal is the current focus—enter the gala.
Held at the Pacific Design Center, the evening had much in store for its some few hundred guests. First, a cocktail and mingling hour under a disco ball-lit room and a silent auction which offered a Paris Fashion Week Trip with Chanel and a private dinner with Los Angeles chef Evan Funke on the docket. For everyone who didn’t snag the $20,000 treat, the gala’s dinner situation was the next best thing, with famed chefs Jon and Vinny curating the best of their peers in one room, restaurants such as Funke, Mr. Chow, and Kato each with their own market-style station guests could drop by as they pleased. Those who stopped by the Goop Kitchen station were in for a surprise, with Gwenyth Paltrow behind the booth herself, serving up chilled oysters.
Up on stage, Kim Kardashian opened the sit-down portion of the evening, Zoey Deschanel hyped up a budding war, and Channing Tatum, who introduced the night’s honoree Salma Hayek Pinault (“I have so much respect for this organization, and I don’t have respect for a lot of organizations,” Hayek Pinault would later say), joked that the actress’s iconic From Dusk Til Dawn scene ruined tequila for him. Later, sister duo Sofia and Nicole Richie prepped the crowd for Snoop Dogg’s performance of all his classics before everyone dispersed for the after-party.