The Illumination Fund considers media and communications as an important way to amplify the work of its grantees and to share program models. Some recent press coverage and program news can be found below.
Fox Business discussed The Apple Pushers in the context of the American Dream. Read Nancy Colasurdo’s article here. Fatima Shama, Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs, discusses The Apple Pushers on a PIX 11 News interview. Watch it here. The New York Times discusses Green Carts, Healthy Bodegas, Health Bucks, and other interventions in…
The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund announced ten community-based organizations throughout the five boroughs that will each receive a $7,500 grant to provide services and business training to NYC Green Cart vendors. The grants, awarded by the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City in…
When we released the NYC Green Cart Cookbook last year, we were lucky to have several top New York City chefs on board. We’ve been keeping tabs on them, and here’s what they’re up to: Eddie Huang was recently profiled in The New York Observer and opened a second restaurant last…
Children’s museums do not usually have exhibitions that involve crawling through a giant digestive system. But such an installation — along with a play center where visitors learn the power of pedaling, bouncing and jumping and a place to meet superpowered vegetable heroes — is…
Laurie told me about an initiative she was helping to fund in a public-private partnership with the city of New York called the Green Carts Program, in which hundreds of street vendors (“micro-entrepreneurs,” as economists like to call them) were rolling carts of fruits and…
Laurie Tisch is going to the Super Bowl, but first she had to pick up some vegetables in the Bronx. “Thursday I’m on the friends and family charter,” she reported. “Hopefully I’ll make it there for the friends and family dinner,” hosted, she said, by…
Laurie Tisch wanted to know whether she had a story worth being told when she approached documentary filmmaker Mary Mazzio. When Mazzio explored Tisch’s idea, she found not one, but five stories begging to be told. This initial meeting between the two women inspired The…
The East End is in fact edible, with its countless producers of fresh-grown fruits and vegetables and an abundance of agriculture at its residents’ fingertips. The main roads of our towns are not lined with fast-food joints, but rather farm stands and pick-your-own purveyors. We…
Just as education is a central part of the Whitney’s mission, the Laurie M. Tisch Education Center will be a hub of activity in the new building downtown. Unlike many museums in the city, where education facilities are relegated to the basement or off-site, the…
One of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund’s long-time partners is getting some phenomenal media attention. The Children’s Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) opened its new exhibit, EatSleepPlay, on November 11, 2011. This exciting, interactive exhibit allows children and their families to explore how and why food, sleep…
What would you think if you visited a public restroom, and the toilet began to talk – in a female voice with a British accent no less – about the bodily function you’d just performed? No such bathroom exists in New York City, but “The…
Through the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation Speaker Series, Laurie M. Tisch, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cathy Nonas, Dwayne Proctor, Ph.D., and Mary Mazzio discussed the twin crises of food desert neighborhoods and obesity. The video of this discussion can be viewed below, and additional information…
Hunter College President Jennifer J. Raab today announced that the Union Settlement Association and Dr. Melony Samuels of Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger are the recipients of the inaugural Joan H. Tisch Community Health Prize. The newly established prize, which will be presented June 22nd at…
Every philanthropist dreams of financing a model program that proves so successful that others want to replicate it. But Laurie M. Tisch had no idea that she would pave the way for other cities when she offered to donate $250,000 to help get a New…
The Carts can be seen all over the city, from busy street corners to the sidewalks beneath elevated subway tracks. Some are sponsored by the likes of Home Depot and other retailers, according to the beach umbrella that inevitably shelters…