Big donor for Children’s hunger charity was only kidding
Barry Williams/New York Day after day NewsSocialite Genevieve Lynch was honored at a Share Our Strength charity dinner and then pulled back her donation.
A prominent New York socialite honored by a respected children’s hunger charity for her “work” with the organization took back a $ 70,000 donation she made to the group — leaving it footing the bill for multiple tables at a fancy fund-raising dinner she attended.
Socialite Genevieve Lynch, a former title-holder of shape-conscious cafe Mulberry & Vine in Tribeca, had been honored by Share Our Strength, a hunger organization that works with famed chef Danny Meyer. Lynch had made a whopping $ 50,000 donation and persuaded a wealthy pal to toss in another $ 20,000 to help hungry children in New York schools.
Lynch then attended a No Kid Hungry Heroes eight-course charity dinner at 23 Wall St. on April 27, where she was saluted in multiple speeches for her donation — which she demanded back immediately after the event, a well-positioned source tells Confidenti@l.
“It was meant to support hungry children, and she took the money back, which is insane,” says our source, who adds that Lynch called herself to demand the money be returned. “She allowed herself to be honored at this dinner, then insisted she didn’t see any evidence of the campaign. This has never happened before.”
The reason she gave, we hear, is that she didn’t believe the charity was making any progress. But on Tuesday, The News broke the report that the No Kid Hungry campaign, which helps children who need access to nutritious food, just got their classroom breakfast campaign funded by Mayor de Blasio and the City Council.
“Genevieve said to Share Our Strength that she didn’t believe that there was a campaign, yet she praised the campaign at the dinner, and this happened last night (Monday),” said our source. “The group does incredible work and every huge-name chef in New York is caught up (with the charity).”
We’re told the charity returned the funds, no questions questioned, to Lynch, who tweeted throughout the dinner that she was caught up with Share Our Strength.
Lynch, who wasn’t born rich, made her millions after starting a new media division at CTI Graphics, a recruiting firm in New York City, after graduating from Brown University.
In 2002, she told the Chicago Tribune she was interested in helping the poor, saying: “It’s not about having a building named after us. It’s really about how many bangs for the buck you can get.”
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