Roots & Wings Hosts 10th Annual Authors’ Luncheon

Roots & Wings Hosts 10th Annual Authors’ Luncheon DENVILLE, NJ - On Wednesday, April 26, 2023, Roots & Wings, a Denville-based non-profit supporting young people who have aged out of foster care, will host its annual Authors’ Lunch at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston. This event is traditionally attended by over 125 professional and literary-minded people who understand the need to support aged-out foster youth in New Jersey. This year, author Emi Nietfeld will discuss her memoir, Acceptance, a memoir of her journey through foster care and homelessness, interrogating the true meanings of resilience, ambition, and success.

After graduating from Harvard in 2015, Nietfeld worked as a software engineer, an experience she wrote about in her viral New York Times essay, “After Working At Google, I’ll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again.” Today she's a mental health advocate, speaker, and journalist writing for publications like The Atlantic, Fortune, and Slate.

Nietfeld will be joined by #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline who is continuing her longstanding relationship with Roots & Wings to lead a discussion and Q&A session with Nietfeld.

Kline is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including The Exiles, Orphan Train, and A Piece of the World, and the author and/or editor of five nonfiction books. She is published in more than 40 countries; her books are taught in universities, colleges, and high schools.

Hundreds of young adults age out of New Jersey’s foster care each year. Many are not reunited with their families or placed into a permanent home, leaving them vulnerable to homelessness, poverty, unemployment, lack of education and incarceration. You can help.

Join us for an afternoon of fine dining, stimulating conversation, and good company while supporting our mission of providing safe housing, emotional support, life skills, and educational opportunities for youth aging out of foster care; empowering them to rise toward their greatest potential.

Roots & Wings is funded almost entirely by individual donations. We rely on the generous support of donors to help change the course of the lives of aged-out foster youth in New Jersey. To learn more and register to attend please visit www.rootsandwingsnj.org.

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Founded in 1999 by Irene DeGrandpre, a CASA volunteer and New Jersey Hero honoree, R&W began in Morris County as a community-based volunteer operation. Intending to provide an intensive, life-changing program focusing on the empowerment of education and the development of critically necessary life skills, R&W volunteers established a residential program to support these young people as they transition from foster care to independence. Today, we have housing in Morris & Union counties and accept young adults from all over the state. Through housing and case management, we provide a safety net protecting our clients from the risks former foster youth face when left without support and guidance, greatly reducing their risk of lifetime poverty and hardship. Clients leave R&W having broken the cycle of poverty, abuse and despair that research shows often continues generation after generation absent intensive outside intervention. All this, because a volunteer in her community decided to change the world, one young adult at a time.