Everyone wants a gala, but the expenses of producing one can easily surpass a small group’s annual budget.

Ten years ago, Sally Berg and Barbara Kronman came up with a solution. They launched the Catalog for Giving, which conducts fund raising for 10 New York nonprofits that help disadvantaged youth. The groups receive 100% of contributions, with the board of the catalog covering its own overhead and expenses.

The fund raising takes place through a J. Crew-style catalog and a gala.

This year’s honorees were young people who have benefited from the nonprofits’ programs. Their award presenters were actress Kerry Washington, Barney’s creative director Simon Doonan, and actor and screenwriter Peter Berg (son of the founder, Ms. Berg).

“It’s much better to be here for a good cause than at some silly awards show in Hollywood,” Ms. Washington said.

The honorees, dubbed Urban Heroes, gave better acceptance speeches than in Hollywood.

“Once I started the Youth Advocacy Center program, I had a different view of life and my circumstances,” Allison Hall, a student at Medgar Evers College, said. Ms. Hall started the program when she was seven months pregnant.

“Life throws us challenges, but it’s how we face them that counts,” ShanoaVicente, a nursing major at Lehman College, who thrived in programs offered by the Brotherhood/Sister Sol, said.

Also honored: Tabitha “Unikqe” Kozokiewicz, who wrote a business plan with Art Start; Jennifer Perez, who moved to research from data entry at Computers for Youth; Jusley Ramirez, whom Foster Pride placed in a group home for deaf children, where she blossomed; filmmaker Tony Santiago, who conducts workshops for the Global Action Project; Elizabeth Canela, who earned the Most Outstanding Brooklyn Debater trophy after training with Legal Outreach; Brigitte Alvarez, who produced her own magazine with help from Make a Better Place; Lonie Gibbs, an alumnus of the StreetSquash team, who now plays squash at Wesleyan, and Malynda Bordes, who attended the Berkeley Carroll School with full tuition assistance from the TEAK Fellowship.

The muckety-mucks also got their due. The event’s corporate honoree was the chairman of Time Equities, Francis Greenburger. And then there were the Catalog for Giving board members who make it happen: David Schulman, Eric Mulkowsky, and Jeremy Singer, to name a few.

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Actress Anne Hathaway was excited to see the sports cars on display at Wollman Rink this weekend during the Concours d’Elegance show. She’s just learned to drive stick, on a Porsche, for the opening scene of the film version of “The Devil Wears Prada.”

“I’ve always felt driving is boring. Now all of a sudden I feel the rush of driving,” Ms. Hathaway said.

Of course, New York isn’t the best place to drive a car, as the show’s organizer, Thomas Hamann, said, “I own a Ferrari, and here it’s so easy to mess up the rims.”

agordon@nysun.com