Portia Crowe/Business Insider
Young New Yorkers kicked off the holiday season on Thursday night at the fifth-annual Toast To Wishes, a charity event organized by Make-A-Wish New York's under-40 board.
The event took place at Marquee in Chelsea, and had been sold-out for six weeks. (Last year's event was so packed that the organizers had to limit the tickets this year to 650, down from 750.)
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"[Make-A-Wish] really gives a child a reason to hope and to dream and to really want to live, at times when they might not want to," Zach Coopersmith, the co-chair of Make-A-Wish's under-4o board and partner at Leading Ridge Capital Partners, told Business Insider.
Coopersmith first came up with the idea for Toast to Wishes five years ago with a group of friends in the Hamptons.
"We were a few years out of school, we were enjoying going to clubs... and we said, 'Hey, could we put something together for a great cause and still have a lot of fun doing it?'"
Short answer: yes.
"With so many things to do, and so many places to give, why Make-A-Wish? For me it's simple - and that's the mission. The mission to grant wishes and strength and joy to children battling life-threatening illnesses. And for me, the impact that Make-A-Wish has on kids and their families dealt such a tough hand is unmatched, unparalleled," Coopersmith told the attendees.