Four years ago, the front men from legendary rock band the Who were struggling to build out their U.S. charitable organization, Teen Cancer America. A series of point people had fallen by the wayside and the group, which raises money to build hospital environments specifically for teenage patients, wasn’t getting much traction.
Then, Merrill Lynch wealth adviser Rebecca Rothstein stepped in.
Introduced to Who lead singer Roger Daltrey by her client, Scottish filmmaker and producer Nigel Sinclair, Rothstein said she had a little time and, wowed by Daltrey’s enthusiasm for the project, agreed to get involved.
“Roger is relentless and had been trying to get Teen Cancer America started here for several years,” said Rothstein, 62. “He was bemoaning the fact that the U.S. hospital system wasn’t recognizing the need for a teen-specific program.”
The first thing she did was have Daltrey and organization co-founder and Who guitarist Pete Townshend sit down with David Feinberg, who was then chief executive of UCLA’s hospital system, and Jordan Kaplan, chief executive of Santa Monica real estate trust Douglas Emmett Inc. Rothstein said the group hit it off and their first Teen Cancer America space was in the works. It opened in April 2013 at UCLA’s Santa Monica medical center.
“UCLA really became our home base,” Rothstein said.
Since then, Rothstein, who is on the organization’s board, has helped Teen Cancer America partner with 10 more hospitals and raise millions of dollars. She said she does everything from help put on Who-fronted charity benefit concerts at SoHo House in West Hollywood to help organize and donate auction items for a recent Chicago Cubs World Series tailgate party.
“I’m obsessed,” she said. “Once you see a kid’s face and the massive difference in outcomes, you can’t help but be passionate about this type of thing.”
Getting in Gear
Justin Mikita, 31, had long wanted to participate in the AIDS/Lifecycle bike ride, in which about 2,000 participants raise money and then bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles over seven days. But by the time Mikita, who co-founded men’s bedding e-tailer Thread Experiment in 2014, did his first Lifecycle ride in June, the journey had taken on personal significance.
Mikita found his life’s purpose when Proposition 8, the California ballot measure to make same-sex marriage illegal, passed in 2008. He joined the American Foundation for Equal Rights, a nonprofit that challenged Proposition 8 at the federal level, where he came to know the Los Angeles LGBT Center. The center is one of the Lifecycle’s two beneficiaries and whose work includes housing homeless youth.
“For me, being lucky, it was a very easy coming-out process,” Mikita said. At the center, he heard from young people who hadn’t been so lucky and who had come to Los Angeles for a better life only to wind up on the streets.
As a Southern California Lifecycle rider, the $24,000 that Mikita raised went to the center.
He’s already signed up for next year’s event.
“Originally, because I wanted to do it for so long, it was about the physical challenge,” he said. “Over the years, I learned there’s so much more behind it.”
Staff reporters Henry Meier and Caroline Anderson contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Jonathan Diamond. He can be reached at [email protected].
