Fresh off the the final season of Girls and her first leading role in a feature film, the critical darling Get Out, Allison Williams is celebrating her success this summer.
The star kicked off the season by vacationing in Tahiti alongside Bradley Cooper, DVF, Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen, and of course, her husband Ricky Van Veen. It's unclear how that particular group of A-listers assembled on a boat, but it certainly seems they had a great time in French Polynesia.
Now that she's back in the States, Williams is diving into her annual passion project, the 10 Days of Giving fundraiser to benefit Horizons National, a summer enrichment program dedicated to combatting learning loss in low-income students with fun classes and swimming lessons.
Every day at noon and then again at 4 p.m. between now and July 27, Williams will reveal a new item with a video (often featuring her adorable dog Moxie, who Williams says is "the best actress I know") on her Instagram. The products featured can then be purchased by making a minimum donation to Horizons.
WWD reports that 21 brands are participating this year, but Williams wants to keep the products hush hush.
"I’m not going to reveal any of the products because I like to keep them a secret, but you can expect a full range of things from accessories, big and small, to dog-related items, cosmetics, ‘splurgier’ items and things that live in a room," she said.
"There is a much broader range of things this year, due to the fact that we’ve doubled in size. Part of the fun every year is to see how everything does and we’re still learning based on the demand."
Williams, who serves as an ambassador for the program, initially got started working with the organization when she was a child herself.
"It was always a part of my life growing up, " she told me. Horizons actually started at Williams's elementary school in the '70s, and when Williams was a child, her mother was on the board.
"My love for the organization was in me from birth pretty much, and it's only grown stronger from there," she said.
"From a young age, I realized that the opportunities I had during the summer were not the same opportunities that a lot of kids I knew had, and my parents constantly reminded us how lucky we are to have that chance," Williams told me.
"And I think a lot of why I'm so committed to Horizons is because I feel like I was so fortunate to have the education that I did. I wish that every kid in America could have the education I did, but until that's the case, programs like Horizons supplement what they're getting during the school year, and definitely what they aren't getting during the summer."
In total, Williams has raised more than $200,000 for Horizons over the years, but even all the good karma in the world can't save a celebrity from New York's current subway situation. (If you're out of the loop, the combination of aging infrastructure and overcrowding of New York City's underground train are making rush hour nearly intolerable.)
"Oh my gosh, it's been nuts," she said, when I asked if she'd had any crazy subway experiences lately.
"The thing that always blows my mind is when I run into people I know on the subway," she said.
"Last week I walked into my subway stop to take the train and [Williams's Girls co-star] Andrew Rannells was in the station refilling his card. That story makes me really happy because even when it's hot and congested and the trains aren't running adequately, at least I'm with someone I wasn't expecting to run into. That always blows my mind."
For more information on Horizons or 10 Days of Giving, head over to awloveshorizons.com.
As the digital director for Town & Country, Caroline Hallemann covers culture, entertainment, and a range of other subjects
