Henry Winkler Praises Daughter Zoe’s Humanitarian Efforts

Henry Winkler was invited to a party his daughter Zoe Winkler Reinis was throwing for her organization This Is About Humanity. Funnily enough, it happened to be at his own home.

“We got an invitation (that read), ‘Come because your daughter and her friends are having an event,’” Winkler told TODAY and attendees at the fourth annual This Is About Humanity (TIAH) fundraiser event on Aug. 27 in Los Angeles. “And then we look to where we were going, it was our house!”

Reinis founded the organization with friends Elsa Collins and Yolanda Selene Walther-Meade in 2018. TIAH raises awareness about the separated and reunified families and children at the United States-Mexico border. They also facilitate trips to the border, help people with shelter, access to legal services, living essentials and more.

“She’s sitting on the couch. She’s watching the news. She’s watching the stories about the children in cages. She said, ‘Oh my god, those could be my children. My three boys,’” Winkler told TODAY at the event. “And out of that came this with her two very good friends. A thought, follow through and an amazing organization.”

Winkler credited his wife, Stacey, as being the guiding light for their daughter to give back. He said they both worked with the MacLaren Children’s Center and Stacey had been a vocal advocate to help create the Los Angeles Department of Children Services.

“So she was the role model for Zoe,” he said.

What started as a donation fund, has become quite the philanthropic endeavor. All it took for Reinis to kick start the organization was seeing families struggle.

“I just saw myself in the moms. And in the children, I saw my own children. That really was all it took. That was the only thing that separated us, was where we were born. There was literally nothing else,” she explained, adding that while she has no ties to the border, “I just knew that I had to do something.”

The fundraising soirée hosted at the Winkler’s residence was a star studded celebration with Kim Kardashian, Idina Menzel, Zoey Deschanel, Francia Raisa, Brian Grazer, Sarah Michelle Gellar and more in attendance. It also honored interior designers and husbands Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent as their inaugural honorees for their outstanding generosity. After a trip to the border with TIAH, they committed to funding two years of housing for LGBTQ+ migrants at the border, providing bedding for youth at the CASA YMCA Shelter for Unaccompanied Minors.

“It really changed our lives as husbands but also as a family, and it represented (how) we want our children, Poppy and Oskar, to move through the world,” Berkus said in his speech. “We are so deeply grateful to (Reinis, Collins and Walther-Meade), not only for this honor… but for everything that you do every single day. Every ounce of support that goes to This Is About Humanity actually arrived at the families and people in need.”

Brent added that during the trip he realized “this is just an opportunity to listen and to open your eyes.” “It’s just one person’s hand reaching out,” he said, that makes the difference. “I’m grateful that you gave us the opportunity to show up and grateful that you guys are giving everybody the opportunity to do something and make the world a better place.”

Walther-Meade told TODAY that the organization has “grown exponentially over the past year.” And during the pandemic, they raised the most funds ever which helped them in “terms of sustainability and longevity and programs that are fighting to last a year or longer.”

And while celebrities aren’t at the forefront, it does help to have them raise awareness for TIAH. As a mother, Sarah Michelle Gellar will do anything to give her children the best life they can have. The actor — who will next star in the “Teen Wolf” spinoff, “Wolf Pack” — has been on “countless” trips to the border with the organization and each one is as impactful and eye-opening as the next.

“To watch it grow is just incredibly amazing. I was on the very first bus trip (to the border) they ever did. And as a mother, you understand what you would do to give your child a better life,” Gellar told TODAY over the phone ahead of the event. “And that’s sort of the basis of how all of this started; as a parent, understanding, willing to give up everything and anything to give your child a chance at a safer, more opportunity, upbringing.”

Earlier this year, Gellar and a group of people helped rebuild a worn down staircase at a YMCA shelter in Tijuana specifically for LGBTQ+ unaccompanied minors. It was all thanks to “One Day at a Time” showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett who, Gellar recalled, organized the project.

“She said, ‘You know, it’s my birthday and I don’t need anything. I’m gonna do a fundraiser to get these stairs fixed.’ And she did,” the actor said. “And she raised the money and then we all got to go down and help install the new stairs. It’s just the simple things like that, where you really see the help and what it does.”

Gellar also makes it a point to get her two children — 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte and 9-year-old son Rocky, whom she shares with husband Freddie Prinze Jr. — involved. Her children volunteer “every year” at the organization’s Christmas party, which includes people who have successfully entered the U.S. via TIAH.

“You tend to get them into it slowly,” the actor shared. “Just little things, (like) before their birthdays, we always have them clean up toys they don’t play with any more that are gently used and give them to people that might not have those opportunities, and just understanding how fortunate they are and that not everyone has those things.”

Meanwhile, the soirée raised over $700,000 and benefits Yes We Can World Foundation’s school bus for migrant children, TIAH xICF x Crossborder Express Relief Kitchen run by Fundación Tijuana Sin Hambre and Immigrant Defenders Law Center’s efforts to provide pro bono legal representation.

The founders' goals for the coming year is to continue serving the vulnerable community at the border.

“We’re never going to fix immigration,” Reinis said. “But my goal is to make sure that every single person knows that they are going to be treated with dignity and grace... to make sure that there’s no child that’s not with their parent and to make sure that every single person that wants to come to this country can come to this country.”

Collins wants to continue to create a community of people giving back, get people volunteering and uplifting the issues at the border. As for Walther-Meade, she wants to make “transformative long-term tangible changes in people’s lives.”

“Ultimately, it’s about humanity,” Walther-Meade said. “It’s about people, it transcends politics and it transcends countries and it really resides in our hearts. And that’s what we tap into, our hearts, and find new ways to help people.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com