A spark of an idea, born from tears shed in a car, has grown into one of the most impactful philanthropic stories in American charity culture.
Eileen Cornacchia is a university lecturer, interior designer, grandmother, and now the architect of an Old Bags Luncheon™, a fundraising empire. She traces Old Bags Luncheon's origin to a question that stayed with her long after the room had emptied. Time spent volunteering with foster children in Palm Beach in 1998 had become routine, showing up with toys and trying to make occasions feel festive for children who had very little. Yet, the emotional weight of those visits never softened.
"My best friend and I would drive home together, but in silence and with tears in our eyes because we didn't want to leave the children who needed help," she recalls. The celebrations they helped organize felt meaningful in the moment, but something about them felt insufficient.
A mother herself, Cornacchia felt particularly drawn to the young boys at the parties, children who, she recalls, by the end of an afternoon, would reach for her hand and look stricken when the goodbyes came. "I saw my own son in them, and I could not pretend otherwise," she adds.
When it was her turn to organize the next event, an Easter party on the beach, something shifted. "I picked up the phone and asked, 'Do these kids need a party or do they need money?' The answer was something I already knew in my heart: they needed money," she recalls. Cornacchia's instinct to look past the surface of goodwill and toward something more lasting set the direction for everything that followed.
Cornacchia notes establishing herself as someone who has always been comfortable bringing people together, though not necessarily in a formal or strategic sense. Palm Beach, she highlights, made that easier. "That's what this town is about: giving back," she says. "Charity events are the heart and soul of this place." The familiarity of that environment gave her the confidence to try something unconventional, even if the idea itself had not yet fully formed.
The concept arrived from a magazine left open on a quiet afternoon. Noticing a feature of women donating handbags for charity lit something in her mind. She says, "What do we all have more of than we need and can't wait to buy the next one?" The answer, of course, was handbags.
Driven by that epiphany, Cornacchia gathered a small group of friends in a living room and presented the idea. The response, she recalls, was immediate and collaborative. Executing the idea, she notes, required creativity and constraint. Without institutional backing, Cornacchia recalls relying on her own network, assembling invitations by hand and mailing them in brown paper lunch bags to ensure they stood out. She highlights that a restaurant offered space for the event, and soon after, friends contributed the handbags they once cherished.
"The entire event had moved from concept to reality within weeks. I gathered enough handbags, and we had the event," she says. "We had raised a good amount, and every dollar went directly to support the children."
The event, Cornacchia notes, expanded city by city, reaching Southampton, then Saratoga, New York, which was a particularly poignant stop for her. Her late husband, Joseph Cornacchia, was a revered figure in the thoroughbred racing world. "We won the Kentucky Derby and won plenty of races across the US and Europe," she recalls.
She highlights how the Museum of Racing Saratoga event, held during the six-week summer race meet, drew the tight-knit horse racing community that had been so central to her life. "All night long, people were coming up to me and saying that was the most amazing event, and I got the most beautiful purse," she recalls. "That's what stands out in my mind as a happy place."
The event also stood out for something more. It gave her the realization that fundraising could carry a sense of joy without diminishing its purpose. "The secret has never really been about handbags. It was about joy in service, the discovery that people could laugh, compete over a luxury-branded clutch, and still be doing something genuinely meaningful, all in the same afternoon," she says. That duality, between glamour and generosity, proved to be the formula that has remained relevant since its inception.
Over the following decades, Old Bags Luncheon evolved into a unique model, licensed across multiple locations, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. To pursue that growth with restraint, Cornacchia believed it was important to charge modest fees, choosing to prioritize charitable impact.
"I never take any percentage of anything that they do," she says. "Just give it all to the charity." Guidance was part of the offering, including detailed instructions contained in a guide Cornacchia wrote, ongoing calls, and a willingness to help others replicate the model effectively.
Now, Cornacchia is thinking about what comes next, not an ending, but more like a considered handoff. She wants to find the right person to carry the torch, someone who understands that this is not just an event brand but a living legacy. "I would like to leave a legacy that these charities keep on going," she says. "I've created something that's going to continue to do well after I am no longer here. That's what matters."
Old Bags Luncheon™ began as a response to discomfort, shaped by a refusal to accept that good intentions were enough. Twenty-eight years later, its longevity rests on that same principle, carried forward through communities that recognize its simplicity and purpose, and Eileen Cornacchia, characteristically, gives most of the credit to the community that showed up.
Email: brooksdaigle@gmail.com
