Mark Jackson, Gigi Stone, Mike Steib and Courtney Corletto
Our 30th annual gala, honoring Time Inc. Chief Content Officer Norman Pearlstine, was held June 7, 2016, at Cipriani 42nd Street. Hosted by Sunny Hostin, senior legal correspondent and analyst for ABC news and a cohost of The View, the event raised $1 million for our programs and affirmed our supporters’ deep commitment to literacy.
Among the highlights: author Jacqueline Woodson read from her forthcoming novel Another Brooklyn and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger from his memoir American Dreamer. Both shared how they had to overcome their own difficulties in reading to achieve their highly successful careers.
Literacy Partners student Matthew Brown appeared a second year in a row, this time with his son and accomplished performer Verlon Brown. The two brought the house down with their duet of Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E.”
Verlon Brown, Matthew Brown
There was not a dry eye in the house when our student Lorena Quiroga, a new English speaker, spoke. “Last year, before my class, my son Mateo said ‘I love you’ in English, but I stayed quiet,” she said. “I didn’t know the right word to say until a few weeks ago…. In English, we say ‘too.’ Now I tell Mateo, ‘I love you, too. I love you, too.”
Gay Talese introduced Pearlstine, extolling his many accomplishments as an editor and a highly respected leader in the news business. Pearlstine, in turn, traced his much-admired career to his parents’ love of books and the advantages he had from learning to read at a very young age.
Days before the gala, Pearlstine spent a morning observing a Literacy Partners class for immigrant parents. The organization, he said, “really [brings] out the best in our society.”