NEW YORK WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL CENTER
Light Up A Life Benefit
Turns Light On Pediatrics

BOUT 1,000 adorable costumed children with parents and grandparents descended on the amazing Toys "R" Us in Times Square for the sixteenth annual Light Up A Life benefit to support the Department of Pediatrics of the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center.

It was a riot of joy and laughter with the Yale Whiffenpoofs serenading, Al Garber doing tricks, John Fogarty and Josh Weiner entertaining, Winnie The Pooh, Barbie, Pokémon, Princess Leah, Darth Vader and many of the other Star Wars characters, plus the Big Apple Circus to Go and the New York Lyric Circus.

The hard working event chair Heather J. Sargent was there with her family. The founding chairs, Kathleen Burns and Katie Brown, who along with Deborah Roberts and Al Roker, were honorary chairs, had a good time as well.

A committee of enthusiastic volunteers included Eva Dillon, Andrea Donahue, Victoria Lindgren, Andrea Lustig, Mati Buccini, Rhonda Erb, Lydia Gustin, Cass Adelman, Debby Blankman, Jeannie Conway, Saskia Evans, Vicki Foley, Julie Inglis, Susan Johnson, Betsey Pick, Nancy Sambuco, Lizabeth Sant’Angelo, Alexandra Scott and Catherine Shepard.

Charlotte Ford, with her granddaughters Charlotte and Callie, of the grandparents committee, Dr. Herbert Pardes, president and CEO of New York-Presbyterian, and Gerald McLaughlin, head of the Department of Pediatrics, were among the heroes who got up early to lend their support as well.

The family fun included delicious food prepared by Robbins Wolfe Eventeurs, rides on the 60-foot indoor Ferris wheel, face painting, hair braiding, balloon artists and much more at the most remarkable toy store in the world.

The event raised $164,000 to benefit the hospital’s youngest and most vulnerable patients, through four select programs in the Department of Pediatrics to benefit from the successful fundraising of this year’s Light Up A Life: Children’s Emergency Medical Fund, Clown Care Program, Division of Child Protection, and Pediatric Emergency Department.

Among the smiling guests were Miss World Nancy Randall, Eugenie Niven, Sarah Foote, Lily Dillon, Robert, Louisa and Peter Lindgren, Erin Donahue, Brenda Johnson with grandchildren Crawford and Skyler Sargent, Christopher and Claudina Buccini, Hopie Dejous, and Dr. Susan Krysiewicz with Aubrienne Krysiewicz-Bell.