All Columns in Alphabetical Order


Thursday, May 10, 2012

NIGHTLIGHT: MAD MUSEUM AND QUEST MAGAZINE HOST BOOK LAUNCH FOR MEERA GANDHI’S “GIVING BACK” BOOK MAY 9, 2012 - A SMASHING SUCCESS!

Barbara Tober, Chairman Emerita and Chairman, Global Leadership Council of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, and Chris Meigher, publisher of Quest Magazine, last night hosted a cocktail party and book launch at the Museum of Arts and Design in honor of a new coffee-table book entitled “Giving Back” by Mover and Shaker Meera Gandhi, and it was a smashing success!
Read our book review:
& our interview with Meera on this book:
Barbara Tober and Meera Gandhi


Meera, Barbara and Chris Meigher, who named Peachy "Hedda Hopper"



Barbara and Donald Tober
Barbara Tober with Chris and Grace Meigher



Meera and Bill Cunningham
Somers Farkas and Barbara Tober
Ellen Sweeney and Barbara Tober
Michael O'Brien and Clodagh, who hail from the same part of County Mayo
Meera is the most popular in the city you can see by the line that wound around the entire atrium!
Jean Shafiroff

Peachy and Barbara


Meera Gandhi, the CEO and Founder of The Giving Back Foundation, features people and charitable organizations in the book who have inspired her and her foundation for their unique ways of giving back to humanity. 
Mrs. Cherie Blair has written the foreword to the book. 
Among those featured in the “Giving Back” book are Mother Teresa and her Asha Daan; Bono and his fight to cure Aids in Africa; Centrepoint: The American Friends of the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry for its involvement with the homeless; designers Emre Erturk, Donna Karan,Urban Zen and Narciso Rodriguez; Hip Hop producers Charles and Randy Fisher; Homayra Sellier of Innocence in Danger of Paris; Steven Rockefeller and the Grameen Foundation; Irish interior designer Clodagh for Thorntree and Irish tenor Ronan Tynan for his work on behalf of Alzheimer’s Disease in Ireland; Kerry Kennedy and her brother Robert F. Kennedy, Jr for their human rights and environmental activities.; The Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val Kill, Hyde Park, NY; Paris: Peter Raj Singh and Lord Loomba of the Loomba Fund for widows; TV broadcaster Deborah Norville for her involvement with The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Children; figure skating Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi and her Always Dream Foundation; actress Patricia Valesquez and The Wayuu Taya Foundation in Latin America, Somers Farkas and the Lighthouse for the Blind; Kids For Kids in Hong Kong; Tails of Hope Advancing veterinary and human comparative medicine; St. Michael’s Girls’ Hostel in New Delhi, India, and many more. 
100 percent of the book’s proceeds will go to The Giving Back Foundation and its associated charities. According to Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and editor-at-large for Time Magazine, “The act of giving is twice blessed, touching the recipient but also the donor. We are at the beginning of a great revolution of giving. Meera Gandhi describes and celebrates it in this beautiful, heartwarming book.” 
Barbara Tober of the Museum of Arts and Design, said, “It is our pleasure tonight to salute Meera Gandhi and The Giving Back Foundation’s good works and to introduce the “Giving Back” book in the U.S. The touching stories of how people from around the world are involved in one-on-one humanitarian efforts at a deeply personal level are a profound example to all of us.” 

Whom You Know was pleased to see and meet:
Mover and Shaker Meera Gandhi
Mover and Shaker Fern Mallis
Barbara Tober
Donald Tober (& we saw him at lunch too! stay tuned)

Clodagh
Daniel Aubry
Laurie Dolphin
Ellen Sweeney
Jean Shafiroff
Margaret O'Donoghue Castilo GO BC
Pedro Alejandro Castillo

The Giving Back Foundation, with operations in Hong Kong, New York, London and Mumbai, was established in 2010 by Meera Gandhi, with the support of her husband Vikram, as a not-for-profit, 501 (C) (3) organization. Its beneficiaries are carefully selected existing charities and individuals from around the world, with special emphasis on women and children in need. Directly assisting education of women and children, and addressing illness, poverty and suffering are the primary activities of the Foundation, whose motto is, “We are to the universe only as much as we give back to it.” 

Meera Gandhi is the daughter of an Irish mother, Ellen Mary McCarthy of Dublin, and an Indian father, Admiral Perbodh Nath Agarwal from UP, India. She grew up in India, Ireland and England and studied in India, Canada and the U.S. She was recently honored as a Distinguished Alumna of Boston University. She and her husband, who have three children, reside in London, Hong Kong and New York City. 

The Giving Back coffee-table book is available on Shop with Peachy:


Amazon.com and in NYC at Chartwell Booksellers, The Corner Bookstore, Crawford Doyle Booksellers, Rizzoli Bookstore, and St. Mark’s Bookshop. It can also be purchased at TheGivingBackFoundation.net. The new book was launched with events in New 
Delhi, Istanbul and Hong Kong and will be introduced at book signings in London and Dubai in the next 
few months. 


# # # 



ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN 

The Museum of Arts and Design explores the blur zone between art, design, and craft today. It 

focuses on contemporary creativity and the ways in which artists and designers from around the 

world transform materials through processes ranging from the artisanal to the digital. The 

Museum’s exhibition program examines and illuminates issues and ideas, highlights invention 

and craftsmanship, and celebrates the limitless potential of materials and techniques when used 

by gifted and innovative artists. MAD’s permanent collection is global in scope and focuses on 

art, craft, and design from 1950 to the present day. Central to its mission is education. Its 

dynamic new facility features classrooms and studios for master classes, seminars, and 

workshops for students, families, and adults. Its Open Studios enable visitors to engage artists 

at work and further enhance exhibition programs. Lectures, films, performances, and symposia 

related to the Museum’s collection and topical subjects affecting the world of contemporary art, 

craft, and design are held in the 144-seat MAD theater.
Peachy and Meera!  The event was a bit of a blur it was so well-attended and so much fun!


Back to TOP