Crain's New York Business - December 17, 2012 - (Page 26)

Help for the holidays Continued from Page 21 SOURCE LUNCH: CRAIG LEAVITT by Adrianne Pasquarelli Per Se. At God’s Love We Deliver, Susan Oher, director of special events and volunteer services, had to put people on a waiting list for spots delivering meals on Thanksgiving. The list had about 125 names. And that was on top of the 900 volunteers the nonprofit already uses for both Thanksgiving and Winter Feast, a meal delivered on the morning of Dec. 24 this year. date everyone who wants to volunteer at holiday time,” said Ms. Greenberg. “There are so many people looking to help that it’s difficult to return all the calls and emails, and people don’t understand that. On the other hand, we couldn’t do any holiday events if we didn’t have the volunteers.” There is also a hierarchy in the desirability of the type and location of jobs. For starters, it’s much easi- Flooded with volunteers “People come out to help from all over,” said Ms. Oher, whose nonprofit works with more than 8,000 volunteers annually. Dealing with people who work for free isn’t always easy, however. Stefanie Greenberg, volunteer manager at the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, oversees about 2,000 volunteers every year and an additional 150 during the holiday season. Ms. Greenberg gets inundated with calls and emails from prospective volunteers who often feel neglected if she doesn’t get back to them immediately. Some hopeful helpers call her the day or even the hour of an event to offer their services. “It’s very difficult to accommo- ‘It’s not just giving money. You get to participate’ er to find volunteers to work in Manhattan than in any other borough. Citymeals still has some openings in Brooklyn and Queens on Christmas Day, and the Met Council this year started offering to bus volunteers to Brooklyn. It’s also easier to find volunteers to serve or deliver food, or help paint or build homes.There is metropolitan council on jewish poverty less interest in office work and other menial tasks. Ms. Greenberg recently posted an ad on a number of volunteer websites to find workers to pass out fliers in the East Village notifying people affected by Hurricane Sandy about the services available to help them. She needed 50 volunteers but only six showed up. On another recent night, however, the Met Council ran a Hanukkah party at the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan for victims of domestic violence, and 22 people showed up to help, even though only 15 were needed. “We don’t like to turn anyone away,” Ms. Greenberg said. “We want them to get to know our organization and know what it’s like to give their time.” These organizations are hopeful that people who come out to volunteer for Christmas will feel so good that they will do it more often. But while thousands of people volunteer year-round, many holiday helpers don’t. “During the holidays, people are thinking more about hunger, and they feel like they want to do something to help,” said Kristin Kehoe, manager of volunteer services at City Harvest. “But our goal is to acquire year-round volunteers, and we try to get people to commit to that.” One volunteer for Citymeals, Alan Schwartz, gives himself holidays off—but delivers meals every Saturday and has for the past three years. Mr. Schwartz, a vice president at Axa Equitable, said he had always wanted to do something for someone else besides donate money, but was just “too lazy.” He was introduced to Ms. Shapiro through a personal connection a few years ago and finally decided to take the plunge one Saturday. After one day, he was hooked. New Kate Spade for those not ready for it A lready well into the pivotal holiday shopping season, Craig Leavitt, chief executive of fashion brand Kate Spade, is hoping for a repeat of 2011, when the label raked in $312.9 million in net sales for the year, a 70% leap over 2010. But the larger test for the apparel exec, who has been with the brand since 2008,will come next year with the launch of Kate Spade Saturday, a lower-priced, casual label geared to women in their 20s and early 30s. How have holiday sales been so far? Are you doing anything differently this year to spur spending? Why Tokyo before New York? We’ve been doing business there for almost 15 years. It was the first market outside the U.S. for Kate Spade. This is a way to introduce new customers to the brand there.We’re also looking forward to launching the brand later in the year in Brazil— that consumer really responds to color. How big of a brand do you envision Saturday becoming? Might it cannibalize Kate Spade’s sales? It’s been really good. We’ve become a real gifting destination. This year, we focused on breadth of price points, a range from $50 to $500, in multiple categories like small leather goods, cold-weather accessories and tabletop items like a paperweight. We ARTISANAL BISTRO have something for a 2 Park Ave. younger consumer who (212) 725-8585 comes in for an iPhone www.artisanal cover to a woman coming bistro.com in for a handbag. Even in AMBIENCE: Trés apparel, we have everyfrançais thing from T-shirts in the $50 range up to occasion WHAT THEY ATE: dresses that are $500-plus. The Big Cheese We’re looking at stores ranging in size from 1,200 to 1,700 square feet. I’m not prepared to size the number of stores yet, but we think it’s a very big opportunity. We don’t really see a lot of overlap. It’s a different occasion, a different consumer. Any other growth plans in the works, perhaps at the Jack Spade men’s label? WHERE THEY DINED We had a lot of expansion this year, and we launched our first stores outside the U.S.—in Tokyo and London.We’ve had significant wholesale expansion, too, and are expanding our sportswear offerings— look for more categories in the year ahead. Kate Spade has been lauded for effectively integrating its brand identity with its e-commerce site. How big is the site, sales-wise, and why does it work for shoppers? BRINGING OUT THE BEST TO MEET THE ADDITIONAL NEED created by Hurricane Sandy, local charities have doubled their efforts—and volunteers have rushed in to help. In the two weeks after the storm, Citymeals-on-Wheels delivered 64,000 emergency meals with 836 volunteers. Executives at the charity said that the day after the storm, the phones started ringing off the hook with people asking to help. The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty still has 350 volunteers working on Sandy relief. A few days after the storm, the nonprofit needed to give out 200 emergency meals, and 150 people showed up to help. Even now, the Met Council is sending about 40 volunteers to Staten Island every Sunday to help victims there rip down drywall and get rid of mold. The volunteers are met by two Staten Island residents, Josh Commer and Debbie Burack, who have taken it upon themselves to organize relief efforts in the borough. Ms. Burack, a mother and art teacher, and Mr. Commer, a construction manager, are neighbors. The day after the hurricane hit, the two of them couldn’t sit still. So they loaded up their car with pizzas and started handing them out in the flooded neighborhoods. Since then, they have collected and delivered hundreds of bags of clothing, cleaning supplies and food. They are still working every day to help people clean up their homes and rebuild their lives. “We’re both EMTs,” Mr. Commer said. “We have that bug in us that wants to help people all the time.” —MIRIAM KREINEN SOUCCAR Friendship formed Mr.Schwartz,70,delivers meals to homebound seniors on the Upper East Side. Though many of the recipients are reluctant to talk to him, Mr. Schwartz befriended a wheelchair-bound woman from Sweden who was in her 90s and lived in a fifth-floor walk-up. The woman had no family or friends, and Mr. Schwartz waited six months for her to let him sit and talk with her. He and his wife began to visit her every Saturday, bringing gifts and sitting with her for hours. Now Mr. Schwartz is heartbroken because the woman died just a few weeks ago. He had been hoping to pay for her to move back to Sweden for her final days, but she didn’t want to go. He plans to attend the memorial service in January. “It was a very rewarding experience, becoming personal friends with her,” Mr. Schwartz said. “I recommend this for everyone. It’s not just giving money; you get to participate in it, and that’s really nice.” You’ve been developing a new lifestyle brand, Kate Spade Saturday, for more than two years. What is it, and when will shoppers get to see it? We don’t talk about This is not a diffusion line. specifics, but it’s a sizable While there is a shared business. We have such a DNA on core values, like voice to our brand, literalcolor and optimism, it is ly and figuratively, with meant to appeal to a new sayings and words, and TAB: $79.41, customer, 22 to 35 years that works well with the including tip old. This is about the casuonline space. Our blog, al side of her life. We found run by just a couple of peothat a lot of customers who love Kate ple, helps to tell that story. AdditionSpade New York maybe are not ready ally,because color and graphics are so for it; maybe they think it’s too pol- important to our products,they work ished. Saturday is also roughly half well online. the price of Kate Spade, with handHow do you handle growing competition bags in the $90 to $160 range. We’ll launch first in Tokyo in from similar brands like Tory Burch and February with an e-commerce site new brands like C. Wonder? and a flagship store.We’ll follow that It may come across as a canned in March with e-commerce in the answer, but you have to focus on U.S., and a few months later a flag- what you’re doing. If you start worship store. New York and Los Ange- rying about what others are doing, les are the most likely possibilities. it’s dangerous. We don’t ignore the We’re very proud of our New York competition, but we put our heads roots, and New York will be part of down and do what’s right for our the occasion, whether it’s the first or brand. That’s what got us through the recession. second store. sandwich (Fontina, Tallegio, Gruyere and Emmentaler); pommes frites Beet salad with endive, walnuts and goat cheese; wild mushroom risotto with pumpkin and sage butter INSIDE TIP: Trust the fromager’s recommendation. 26 | Crain’s New York Business | December 17, 2012 http://www.artisanalbistro.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's New York Business - December 17, 2012

IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
BUSINESS PEOPLE
CORPORATE LADDER
OPINION
GREG DAVID
ALAIR TOWNSEND
REPORT: SMALL BUSINESS
FOR THE RECORD
CLASSIFIEDS
REAL ESTATE DEALS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE LUNCH
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crain's New York Business - December 17, 2012