non-profit organization which provides elementary, middle and high school students in Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods with the means to find the skills and tools they need to flourish personally and academically. “Inner City Arts does this through
an all-arts approach in afterschool programs, a full service arts center and guidance to assist the children in taking their futures to the next level of success. I was introduced to this organization through a ‘Tables for Ten’ event - an annual fundraiser where some of the city’s top chefs and designers collaborate to create tabletop dining exhibitions,” Baroness von Neumann says. “I was chosen to design a dinner table, and I was introduced to the children who benefit from this involvement.” As well, she has also worked with
the Hollyrod Foundation for the past year, a group that provides a wide selection of services and support to families enduring the struggles of having one or more children with autism. Finally, she helps support the efforts of Dr. Keith Black, a leading neurosurgeon and scientist at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles who is dedicated to research and finding new improved ways to treat and cure cancer. “My husband passed away from a
brain tumor,” says Baroness von Neumann, “So I, like Dr. Black, understand the environmental effects that cause the disease. I simply want to contribute to furthering his groundbreaking research.” For each organization, the Baroness
says there are specific reasons she became involved with each one, and they enhance her life in myriad
ways. However, she does note that while she is equally committed to all of these causes, it’s AINA and March to the Top that take up the largest portion of her time. For the future, she says, “Aside
from aiding in fundraisers with Dr. Keith Black, I’ve particularly enjoyed traveling last May with March to the Top and AINA to finish the housing of an orphanage in Kenya. Spending time with the children, getting to know them, seeing first-hand what they live like and how much they really need is life-changing.” Billed as one part Martha Stewart
and another part Wendy Williams, this aristocrat-turned-lifestyle-expert does indeed take her foundations and her life seriously, always sharing advice with the utmost elegance and just a touch of Detroit soul, where she was born. “I was born in Detroit to a law-
enforce ment family,” she says. “But my parent separated when I was five and I moved with my mother to Los Angeles. I had what some might call a Bohemian childhood. My mother was a free spirit and had likeminded friends.” When von Neumann was 18 years
old she met Baron John von Neumann at a dinner party in Palm Springs, but she had no idea who he was at the time. “We shared a fantastic night of
conversation, but it wasn’t until later on that I realized that I had been speaking with not only an Austrian aristocrat but also the man responsible for introducing Volkswagen in America! I’m not one to be easily impressed by status, but when we met again at another party three months later he was so
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