The very first time I met Nicole Siobal was on a busy evening at City Tavern Club for the first Luke’s Wings executive committee meeting. The pint sized fashionista was to join the public relations committee to help throw our very first event for the charity. My friend Ebong Eka, a menswear designer in Washington and a fellow African, who was friends with Nicole invited me for drinks and dinner to get to know her a little more. Thus, a friendship was born. I’m comfortable to say that I’ve known Nicole for about two years now and there is a never been a moment where she was too busy to help a friend with charity events.
Nicole Siobal has been instrumental in a myriad of charity organizations in the city, from Ready, Willing and Working to Luke’s Wings to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and organizations in between. With a plate so full of a full time job and her aspirations of starting social media and community based initiatives for charity, Nicole had the time to run for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Man & Woman of the Year Campaign; dedicating her campaign to her friend Joy Saroja Drumheller, who at the young age of 27, lost her battle to stomach cancer, with a campaign titled en.JOY for LLS.
With an army of well connected Washingtonians on her side, Nicole set out to create a social conscious campaign that would educate and inspire guests to donate to the mission of finding a cure for a disease that does not discriminate. Blood cancers affect the young, the old, black, white, rich, poor, blind, disabled, Christian, Buddhist; it doesn’t matter your situation. Nicole, along with over a dozen men and women set out to raise money for LLS, a cause I have come to adopt as my own because of its ravaging effects on people I’ve grown to know and love.
As the campaign winds down, I got the opportunity to steal Nicole away for a few minutes to dish about fashion and what makes this city “home” to her. She talks candidly about her designer finds, what she grinds her gears, where to steal her look and more. The budding philanthropist, after the interview, told me of her final event, which is going to have the who’s who of Washington in attendance. Washington Redskins tight end Clinton Portis, along with R&B singer Mya will present en.JOY… Reaching for the Stars, a celebrity charity date auction to support her campaign on June 8. She has enlisted the help of corporate sponsors and society magazines to make this event the fete of the MWOY Campaign 2010 and yours truly will be there to support her.
