Lunch with a Purpose: The RealReal
Thursday, May 7, 2026, 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
Join us for an inspiring evening featuring Julie Wainwright, e-commerce pioneer and founder of The RealReal, as she shares her entrepreneurial journey and insights from her book, Time to Get Real: How I Built a Billion-Dollar Business that Rocked the Fashion Industry. Since founding The RealReal in 2011, Wainwright has transformed the way people buy and sell fashion, jewelry, and art while championing sustainability, responsibility, and circularity.
The afternoon will include a lively conversation with Julie, a demonstration by a stylist on styling timeless wardrobe pieces, and a thoughtfully curated dinner featuring local and sustainable flavors. Each guest will receive a copy of Wainwright’s book to take home, making this a truly memorable experience.
Proceeds from this program support Grace Farms Foundation’s mission across five initiatives, the ongoing preservation of Grace Farms’ natural landscapes, and innovative solutions to create a more humane and equitable future.
Julie Wainright
Julie Wainwright is the CEO and Co-founder of Ahara, the only food-first personalized nutrition company that translates clinically validated science into practical and precise nutrition for optimal health. She founded The RealReal in 2011, bringing luxury consignment online and into the modern world with a digital marketplace for authenticated luxury goods. When Julie took The RealReal public in 2019, she became the 23rd woman in history to found and lead a company to an IPO. She is also the author of Time to Get Real, an upcoming memoir about her entrepreneurial journey creating The RealReal, which shares the lessons, triumphs, and setbacks she faced along the way.
She has received several prestigious industry awards and accolades from Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, CNBC, Inc. Magazine, Business of Fashion, and more.
She was recently selected by Forbes for their inaugural 50 Successful Women Over 50 list and was celebrated on the cover of Forbes Magazine in June 2021.
Along with being a sought-after speaker, Julie serves as an advisor to Purdue University’s Fashion Tech Lab and the Krannert School of Management and actively supports local and national nonprofits that focus on entrepreneurship, education, the arts, sustainability, and animal welfare.
We all build
2025-2026 season
Our 10th anniversary season offers a full schedule of programming intentionally rooted in the theme, We all build. What we choose to build — and how we design and build it — are questions explored at Grace Farms and through our Design for Freedom movement. This season offers unforgettable experiences including one-of-a-kind concerts, nature workshops, wellness tea retreats, and programs spotlighting world-renowned leaders, prolific thinkers, and thought-provoking creatives—inviting people of all ages to come to Grace Farms and consider their individual and collective power to build a better world.
