mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

"My Mother's Day was terrific," she said. "We were upstate on the farm with our two daughters and we got a call from the third." Given that this was a benefit for an organization that delivers food to the hungry and teaches children about proper nutrition, we inquired about a typical dinner at the Spitzer household. "We try to eat healthy," said Ms. Spitzer. "We typically have a protein, two vegetables and a starch." Anything her girls couldn't go without? "Sure--pasta! Very healthful, don't you think?"

Ms. Spitzer said she is still working as the managing director for Metropolitan Capital Advisors when she is not serving on benefit committees like this one. "That's my day job," she said. Balancing the two is manageable for her, she said. "This time it was very easy because it's half a block from here. But you know, your time just sort of expands to fill the need that you have to get things done. You find a way to make it work."

Having a private moment behind the velvet red curtains that close off the dining room at the Metropolitan Club, Silda Wall Spitzer was going over a speech, trying out the podium and smoothing the unruly strands (of which there are very few) of her hair back into place. She was there on the morning of Tuesday, May 11, to speak at a City Harvest luncheon. And as the vestibule filled up with attendees, Ms. Spitzer slipped off a black shawl and came out to mingle in a cream-colored skirt suit.

"My Mother's Day was terrific," she told the Transom when we asked. "We were upstate on the farm with our two daughters and we got a call from the third." Given that this was a benefit for an organization that delivers food to the hungry and teaches children about proper nutrition, we inquired about a typical dinner at the Spitzer household. "We try to eat healthy," said Ms. Spitzer, who nowadays juggles working as a managing director for Metropolitan Capital Advisors and serving on benefit committees like this one. "We typically have a protein, two vegetables and a starch." Anything her girls couldn't go without? "Sure, pasta! Very healthful, don't you think?"

Just then a bell rang signaling guests to take their seat. The Transom found itself at a table with socialites Gillian Miniter, wife of financier Sylvester; Susan Fales-Hill, a descendent of the Mayflower settlers; and Muffie Potter Aston, wife of plastic surgeon Sherrell Aston. The subject of Ms. Fales-Hill's upcoming novel about cheating upper-class wives arose. "You have all these scandals going on and I wanted to show the other side-it's not like the women are just sitting at home," she said.

A City Harvest driver was welcomed to the stage and told the group he was a waiter at an event just like this when he learned about the organization. "That was an inspiring speech," said Ms. Aston when he finished. "He was a waiter. Here." As the ladies nibbled on grilled salmon, Ms. Spitzer came over to lovingly squeeze a few shoulders. "I repped her first comeback event with Children for Children," said Leslie Stevens, founder of PR firm LaForce + Stevens, who was sitting to our right, referring to the first benefit Ms. Spitzer attended in 2008 since ... well, you know. "I went to college with Eliot, so we're old friends."

"This is a wonderful organization," said Ms. Miniter across the table. "I heard a story where they brought a pineapple in and the kids didn't know what it was. They tried it, and they went home asking their parents, 'Where do we get a pineapple?' It teaches children about nutrition."

Changing topics, Ms. Aston told a story about how she recently left her baby sitter alone with her 5-year-old twin girls and when she returned, the twins told her that the baby sitter had gone outside for five minutes to see her boyfriend. We all shook our heads. Ms. Aston locked out the baby sitter and then let her go. Ms. Fales-Hill suggested a girl she knew as a replacement.

The conversation moved on to the murder of Yeardley Love at the University of Virginia; some of the ladies knew the parents of the alleged killer, George Huguely. Then: cyber-bullying and the general hardships of raising teenagers.

Around 1 p.m., Ms. Spitzer spoke from the stage about the importance of service and led a panel discussion with some high-school students. Two girls from Spence were especially impressive, which prompted Ms. Fales-Hill to whisper, "This is a nice counterpoint to what we were just talking about." She raised her hand to reiterate. "As a mother of young children, I just want to say that you give us hope, especially as we read these horrible stories of what teenagers do sometimes."

On March 7, the group organized the online event, called Stay In and Help Us, and asked people to calculate how much money they usually spend to go out on a Saturday night (say, $40 at the movie theater or $80 for dinner and drinks) and donate that amount to raise funds for City Harvest, a New York-based nonprofit organization that rescues food from restaurants and supermarkets and delivers it to programs that feed the hungry. For entertainment, Stay In and Help Us participants could check out Twitter and Tumblr for real-time commentary and live audio and videocasts of others participating in the cause. The organization raised about $1,400 within six hours. On March 26, they asked their online buds to participate in another Twitter-based event, TenBuckThursday, to fuel online donations.

On April 3, Messrs. Tripp and Knell are hosting a more traditional charity event for City Harvest—a swanky cocktail party at the Roger Smith Hotel, with an open bar, live music and an auction. SM4SC is part of a unique collection of charity organizations that combine traditional fund-raising tactics—parties, mixers, events—with the power of social media to not only spread the word about these events and collect micro-donations (perhaps inspired by Obama’s online campaign), but also make charity work less corporate and more personal. Some call it micro-philanthropy.

“Social media democratizes fund-raising,” Mr. Tripp explained, phoning in from Boston. “In the traditional way, an organizer organizes it for the charity and for them to cover their costs, they’re reaching out to the Bear Stearns, the Fidelitys, these big name, big-pocket donors who can cover big costs for the event,” he said. “What social media has done is said, instead of two or three big-dollar donors, we’re going to ask for 200 or 300 small-dollar donors.”

Social media not only reaches those chatty “influencers” tweeting away on Twitter, but those peoples’ entire online networks and the networks of the people who follow them. The Internet opens up whole new layers of charity circles to tap into.

Using the Internet also breaks down geographical barriers, Mr. Tripp added. “New Yorkers have the night,” he said, referring to the April 3 event. “Online, you have a relationship with people all around the world who can identify with the cause that you’re working towards.” In fact, Mr. Knell told The Observer, only two out of the 38 donors for the Stay In and Help Us event were New Yorkers—even though City Harvest is a New York-based organization.

But for their part, city tech folks are not just attending the April 3 evening, but also donating their time and services for a silent auction. For example, Lisa Lacy, a Huffington Post food blogger, is donating a one-on-one cooking lesson; Whitney Hess, a user experience designer, is offering her services; and Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures, will host a “private power lunch." "That's probably the highest, most valuable donation they can give—their time," Mr. Knell said.

The Roger Smith Hotel offered a free space, catering and an hour-and-a-half open bar for the event, and SM4SC recruited several corporate sponsors, including Yelp, the user-generated review site, to donate cash and services. But most donations to City Harvest are coming straight from attendees and online donors. “If we had to rely on corporate donations, it would’ve been a lot tougher,” Mr. Knell said. “But I think spreading the message and distribution and getting people behind it, there’s really been no cost involved for us. I don’t know if we could’ve done any of this without social media.”

Messrs. Tripp and Knell are “social media friends,” as they put it—meaning they follow each other on Twitter. Last June, Mr. Tripp had the idea to use social media platforms like Twitter to help fuel charity events. “The social media world has a lot of get-togethers,” or “Tweetups,” he explained, “and, not to put it too bluntly, but it’s a lot of patting each other on the back. You know, like, ‘Hey you’re a tech guy, I’m a tech guy,’ type thing…The idea was to have a social media gathering that did more than just celebrate the fact that we had this one thing in common.”

In October, Mr. Tripp and Mr. Knell organized a charity event at the Harvard Club in Boston and raised more than $20,000 for Jane Doe, an organization that fights domestic violence and sexual assault. “It was just supposed to be a single event,” Mr. Tripp said. “A nice little gathering, do a little bit of good and then we can go back to patting each other on the back. But then, talking to Matt, talking to just everybody, they were really like, this is something new, this is something that nobody has really dived into.”

So they decided to do another event, this time in New York. Mr. Knell read some articles about food and hunger charities struggling to survive because corporations were pulling funds and volunteers. So they decided to organize the April 3 event to support City Harvest.

Currently, they have sold 142 tickets, at $35 to $45 a pop, for the night. They’re capping it off at 200 people so they expect to sell out and raise at least $20,000 for City Harvest, which claims it only needs 28 cents to rescue one pound of food. “New Yorkers always leave everything for the last minute so we’re expecting a bump in sales,” Mr. Knell said.

As far as reinventing charity work, Mr. Tripp was humble. He said it's just easy and cheap to use social media to spread the word and convince people that even a $1 or $5 donation can make a difference. “We still have the ‘Old World’ event, but you can market it in a different way,” Mr. Tripp explained. “Combine the online microdonation and but also say let’s get together and have the auctions and parties”—online, on a Saturday night in front of the computer screen, and offline, at the mixers, too.

"I'm trying to taste as much as I can!" said chef Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin. Mr. Ripert was making his way from table to table, saying hello to fellow chefs like Blue Hill's Dan Barber and occasionally checking back on his restaurant's table, which was serving poached shrimp over cellophane noodles in spiced bamboo broth. "I have tasted some gnocchi from Spigolo over there that are delicious. And the ham from Telepan, also delicious!"

The Daily Transom wondered if Mr. Ripert was feeling shown up by any of his competitors' dishes.

"No, there is no such thing as jealousy here," he replied. "It's all very communal. It's just fun for us to see each other because really we don't have time to interact much outside of work."   

Naturally, the subject soon shifted towards the recession. Mr. Ripert admitted he and his peers have been talking about it. 

"For the moment we are grateful to be in New York because it's still buzzing and people have a social life and they like to go out," he said. "But like I said to my team, if we have a beautiful product and we are serious and dedicated, people will always come. When people go out right now, they don't want to go somewhere where it might be a good experience or it might be a bad experience. They want to go to the safe place. So despite the slowdown I think we'll be just fine."

On the other side of the room, we found Craft owner and Bravo's Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio. Unlike the other chefs in the room, who were dressed in chefs' coats, their names stitched onto the left breast, Mr. Colicchio looked dapper in jeans and a slimming blazer with patched elbows.

Mr. Colicchio was overseeing his table of Wagyu short rib sliders with Benton's bacon and smoked blue cheese. Earlier in the evening, Daily Transom overheard one of the guests saying, "Hey, there is that guy from Top Chef!" But Mr. Colicchio didn't seem to be bothered by the reality TV fame he's garnered in the past few years.

"People who know me know me for what I do," Mr. Colicchio told the Daily Transom. "The only thing that bothers me is that people think I spend half my life on the show, but I spend only about five weeks taping and I work every other day, so it's really only like 20 days out of the year!" 

As for the economic slowdown, Mr. Colicchio said he's seeing the bright side of thing—at least it's happening during the cold months!

"In this market, I find that going out to eat can be very comforting," he said. "So it's a good thing that this is happening in the fall and winter because that's the time of comfort food—braised meats, roasted vegetables and stuff like that."  

“As a New Yorker, you’re confronted with people who are in need in one way or another. Whether it’s people asking you for money or asking you for a meal—and it’s very difficult to make that decision on a moment-to-moment basis, day after day,” the 39-year-old told The Daily Transom last night. He was looking pretty good in a sharp suit and hair that looked like it was still slick with something like Kiehl's Creme With Silk Groom, sort of faux-shower-fresh, at the Metropolitan Pavillion on West 18th street for City Harvest’s 25th anniversary party.

The room was filling up fast with smoke from cooking chunks of steak as Mr. Crudup talked; there were little mob scenes at stations set up by restaurants on the order of Aquavit, Le Cirque, Blue Hill, Le Bernadin and Union Square Café.

“Typically, people won’t say specifically they’re in need of a meal," Mr. Crudup said. "They’ll say they’re in need of money, and I’ve made the decision to give my money to organizations. So typically I say, ‘I can’t help you today, but if you need some help, I know where you can go.’ That helps me to confront the issue with the person, and not have to ignore it and feel like I’m ignoring people in need, and not have to make New York a more abrupt place than it already is; and it helps me to put the onus of helping people on the people who are really qualified to do it and capable to do it,” he said. Deep breath! He'll spend the next four months in Vancouver filming Zach Snyder’s Watchmen.

Later, Rachael Ray took a few ‘Yummo’-free moments to dish about how hungry people in New York differ from people-in-need elsewhere.

“They probably have more challenges, I would think, just because an urban environment isn’t as conducive to people stopping and really taking the time to help you as a suburb environment,” Ms. Ray, 39. She was wearing a red dress and suede boots. “But I gotta tell you, I live a more small-town life when I’m in New York City than when I’m upstate. It’s ironic, but it’s true. There’s still that small village feel.”

Unlike Mr. Crudup, though, Ms. Ray makes a habit out of reaching into her deep pockets on daily basis. “We have people that we see frequently on our block and we never figure, ‘Oh we gave you 20 bucks last week!’ We always give them food, money. If I have money on me, I give it. I lived check-to-check for a long time and there but for the grace of god, literally, go I. Anybody could be homeless tomorrow!”