May 2025 Featured Interview
A Shining Example of Compassion:
An Interview with Deborah Koenigsberger
Deborah Koenigsberger
Photo Courtesy: Deborah Koenigsberger
Photo Courtesy: Deborah Koenigsberger
By Carol Lippert Gray
About Deborah:
Deborah Koenigsberger is founder and CEO of Hearts of Gold, a New York City nonprofit organization that provides the support, tools, education and training necessary to overcome the key elements that define poverty. Inspired by a personal encounter with a homeless family and driven by her belief in what’s possible, Deborah created an organization that empowers women to break the cycle of poverty through education, job training, and support.
Before her philanthropic work, she built a successful career in fashion as a model, stylist, and owner of the boutique Noir et Blanc in Manhattan’s NoMad/Flatiron district. A graduate of New York University, Deborah is also a proud wife and mother of two. Her life’s work is centered on reimagining futures and making lasting change, one family at a time.
About Hearts of Gold:
Hearts of Gold, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, works in partnership with mothers and their children to help them transition out of the New York City shelter system and into the larger community. Since its founding, the organization has enabled over 40,000 mothers and children “reimagine their futures together.” The organization has a close collaborative relationship with each shelter — in particular with their respective directors — who identify the mothers and children most in need.
Programs include the Fresh Start University Workforce Development Program, which provides on the job training at the resale store tth Vintage Boutique and scholarships to support higher educational opportunities for moms. Hearts of Gold also provides tutoring for the children, which includes building skills associated with STEAM (Science,Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) and summer camp experiences through (S.T.E.P).
About Deborah:
Deborah Koenigsberger is founder and CEO of Hearts of Gold, a New York City nonprofit organization that provides the support, tools, education and training necessary to overcome the key elements that define poverty. Inspired by a personal encounter with a homeless family and driven by her belief in what’s possible, Deborah created an organization that empowers women to break the cycle of poverty through education, job training, and support.
Before her philanthropic work, she built a successful career in fashion as a model, stylist, and owner of the boutique Noir et Blanc in Manhattan’s NoMad/Flatiron district. A graduate of New York University, Deborah is also a proud wife and mother of two. Her life’s work is centered on reimagining futures and making lasting change, one family at a time.
About Hearts of Gold:
Hearts of Gold, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, works in partnership with mothers and their children to help them transition out of the New York City shelter system and into the larger community. Since its founding, the organization has enabled over 40,000 mothers and children “reimagine their futures together.” The organization has a close collaborative relationship with each shelter — in particular with their respective directors — who identify the mothers and children most in need.
Programs include the Fresh Start University Workforce Development Program, which provides on the job training at the resale store tth Vintage Boutique and scholarships to support higher educational opportunities for moms. Hearts of Gold also provides tutoring for the children, which includes building skills associated with STEAM (Science,Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) and summer camp experiences through (S.T.E.P).
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"In your world, wherever you are, there’s someone whose life you can touch." ~ Deborah Koenigsberger |
You would think having had a career as a successful model in New York and Paris, and then going on to run a thriving Manhattan boutique while raising two sons, would be enough. But Deborah Koenigsberger was raised in a family that prioritized service to others. So, she also founded Hearts of Gold, a nonprofit that aims to ease the burdens of homeless mothers, after a chance meeting with a young mother sleeping in a cardboard box in a public park with her toddler daughter. With Stevie Wonder’s song “Take the Time Out” ringing in her ears, she established Hearts of Gold. Here’s the story of a woman with a true heart of gold.
Are you originally from New York?
I was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and came here when I was 12. I grew up in the Bronx.
You’ve said that growing up, your family modeled giving to others. What did that mean to you?
I didn’t know what it was; it was just kind of the way we lived. My parents never preached anything. They did things. Dad would stop and help people on the street or in cars stalled on the highway. He shoveled people out in the snow, jumpstarted cars — he even brought people home who were stranded.
Dad was a tinkerer, a jack-of-all-trades. He would just stop and fix somebody’s problems. He never asked for or took a dime. It taught me by osmosis that this was what you should be.
I came from a large extended family, and that’s just the way people behaved. Everyone helped everyone else. I learned that enough for us was more than enough for a whole lot of people.
Have you instilled those values in your children?
My parents never preached. I did the same thing. I just said, ‘Here’s what’s going on, guys. Two kids from the shelter are coming to sleep over.’
My younger son was bike riding when he was about eight years old and found four $20 bills. He was so excited to race home and give me the money. He pulled it out and said we could give it to those children that we help. I said, ‘I’m not telling you to give it all away. We can share.’
Tell us about your modeling career.
There was a designer in my area growing up. She asked my mom if a friend and I could do fittings for her. We were about 15 or 16. Then we got into fashion shows. I kept getting jobs. I worked in the Garment Center [in New York] as a fit model as a part-time job. I went to New York University and wanted to study in Paris, and fashion became a means to an end. My parents matched my savings. A classmate’s mother in Paris hired me. I loved it because I learned so much about fabric and good clothing and how clothes are made, how they should fit. Then I was a day model in department stores.
Then you opened a boutique.
In 1989, I had been in retail partnerships and wanted to move on and be on my own. With the help of a really good friend, I got a space at 19 West 23rd Street. I wasn’t new to fashion, but I was new to business. I learned on the fly. People who knew me from the industry helped and guided me.
I also had Bethann Hardison as a mentor.
Editor’s note: Bethann Hardison is one of the first high-profile black models. She walked in 1973’s famous Battle of Versailles, in which top French and American designers went toe-to-toe. She formed her own modeling agency in 1984 and is known for her activism in promoting diversity in the fashion industry.
Where did you find the time and energy to start Hearts of Gold?
In 1994, I was swept away by my drug of choice, Stevie Wonder. His song about homelessness, “Take the Time Out,” took my breath away. Then, on vacation, I met [makeup mogul] Bobbie Brown before she was Bobbie Brown. She came to see the store, and I asked her to go to the shelter, where she gave away makeup and did workshops for the women.
By that Christmas, I had made a plan to adopt some moms and their kids and make Christmas for them. I had the names, sizes, and genders of 135 kids and got toys, books, stuffed animals, and meals. It was really a beautiful celebration. But one mom was not happy. She said, ‘So what. Ain’t nobody ever done nothing for me.’ I realized what she really was saying is, ‘I don’t even know how to want this for my child if I never had it for myself.’ I remembered my mother’s refrigerator magnet, ‘If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.’
So, I decided to do the same thing for Easter. The Easter Bunny called up the mothers of the children and gave them donated product from Bobbie Brown and jewelry from Ivana Trump’s line [she was selling on television then.]
What does the organization mean to you?
It became what I wanted to do all the time. We’re giving hope to people who aren’t in the best time of their life and just need some help to get them launched.
They’re flatlining with their lives. If I can infuse love, hope, humanity and empathy, then I will have paid the rent for being here today.
How do you fit it all in?
I think time is something you manufacture for the things that truly matter to you. I’m a juggler.
I figure it out. Nobody ever told me failure was an option. I was taught to stop and think about whatever it is. You can work it out.
That’s the best gift my mom ever gave me. I’m really happy that that’s how she raised me and my brother. She was an immigrant doing what she needed to do. She told me that if you had an education, you had options. Everybody had a job. Our job was to get good grades. I never wavered.
There were people along the way who helped my mom. There were people along the way who helped me. I want to be on the pulse of real people and keep it grassroots. It’s not hard work. It’s heart work. I’m happy to have been chosen for this assignment, and I fully accept it.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
In your world, wherever you are, there’s someone whose life you can touch.
Where do you find sanctuary?
In spirituality. My mom was such a spiritual person, and I’ve become her. I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing and that gives me peace.
My husband is an amazing guy. We’ll be celebrating our 36th anniversary. My sons are 30 and 32. I understand how blessed we are.
I know, believe and behave as if something greater than us controls all this.
