Two hundreds guests gathered at the Rainbow Room for Tuesday’s Spirit of Achievement Awards luncheon.

In its 67th year, the event saluted Fern Mallis with its Innovator award and Laurie Tisch and her daughters Emily Tisch Sussman and Carolyn Tisch Blodgett were the Philanthropic award honorees. The Change-maker award was presented to Ana Maria Cuervo, MD, who is the Robert and Renee Belfer chair for the study of neurodegenerative diseases and professor and codirector of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Held in person for the first time since 2019, the Spirit of Achievement Awards were created by the women’s division of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1954. It started as a mother-daughter luncheon honoring Marlene Dietrich and her daughter Maria Riva. Recognizing the Tisches for their philanthropy was also an effort to welcome more mothers and daughters to support the organization and encourage younger generations to participate.

The luncheon’s co-presidents Trudy Schlachter and Terri Goldberg greeted guests warmly, while co-chairs Carol Roaman and Andrea Stark also made the rounds. The goal was to raise about $500,000 for the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Montefiore. This was the first year that the fundraising wasn’t earmarked for solely breast cancer research, but all types of research including COVID-19. “And we work with all the other hospitals in New York sharing our results, which makes it wonderful. What drives us is the philanthropy for the research in medicine,” said Schlachter.

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