Henri Landwirth (born March 7, 1927) is an hotelier, philanthropist, and founder of Give Kids The World and Dignity U Wear. He was originally from Belgium and is a Holocaust survivor. After World War II, he fled to the United States after a stint in the Army; Landwirth took a course in hotel management. He first worked in New York City and then in 1954 became manager of the Starlite Motel in Florida. Landwirth was also reported to be one of the original owners of the hotel that is now known as the Seralago Hotel & Suites near Orlando, Florida. He would give away free rooms to children whose arrangements to go to their desired vacation are taking too long.
In 1978 he founded Fanny Landwirth Foundation, named after his mother and the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation in 1984, with the Mercury Seven astronauts. In 1986, Landwirth started Give Kids The World after a reservation had been cancelled by the family of a terminally-ill child that had died while making arrangements for the trip. In 1999 he founded Dignity U Wear which gives clothing to homeless and abused children and their families. Henri and his experiences in the Holocaust and later with Give Kids the World were the subjects of a 2006 documentary by Robert Allan Black entitled Borrowing Time.
Famous quotes containing the word henri:
“The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse—as a luxury befitting a young man.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)