Giving is taking a new form, courtesy of the parents to Harlow Richie-Madden.

Nicole Richie and Joel Madden announced Monday a text-messaging effort with MySpace to benefit their Richie-Madden Children’s Foundation.

“There are so many children here who need a place to play. We’re excited to help them,” Richie sat at an ice cream social to raise awareness in downtown Los Angeles Monday.

“We think there should be a playground on the concrete slab you’re sitting on,” Madden said to the crowd. “It’s bigger than building a playground, but this is an exciting start. And I’ll come play on it.”

The couple also took to their Web site to urge participation. “We hope our support will shine a spotlight on important issues facing children and will inspire and educate the public, especially young people, to get involved, too. We want to do more than write checks.”

The program aims to benefit low-income families, build playgrounds, offer medical services, and give baby products to mothers. Foundation partners include the Los Angeles Free Clinic, UNICEF and Children’s Health Fund.

The Richie-Madden Children’s Foundation, founded in 2007, has Richie’s mother, Brenda, on its board of directors. The San Francisco-based Tides Foundation is listed as the charity’s fiscal supporter.

RELATED ARTICLE:
• Nicole pursues a charitable life post-baby
RELATED GALLERY:
• Harlow makes her PEOPLE debut!

Nicole Richie is behind a new online gift registry that will provide baby products to moms in need.

Richie will launch the Web site this fall through her Richie-Madden Children’s Foundation, the charity she and boyfriend Joel Madden started last winter when she was pregnant with daughter Harlow.

“Nicole saw that even a clean blanket was out of reach for some of these new moms so she wanted to figure out an efficient way to connect them with companies and individuals who want to help,” foundation advisor Bruce Richman tells PEOPLE.

The registry will start off helping families in the Los Angeles and New York areas before expanding throughout the country and internationally.

“We take for granted the basic necessities. For some families, it’s a serious struggle,” Richie tells PEOPLE. “This is one way to ease the financial burden, and help new babies have a good start in life. We are only working with companies and products that Joel and I would use. We’re checking every product out for safety - and all products are BPA-free.”

Richie and Madden hope to feature baby products that they would use with their own daughter, 7-month-old Harlow.

The foundation is still lining up sponsors for the as-yet unnamed registry site, which is being guided by DonorsChoose.org and Baby2Baby.org.

Nicole Richie may be blissfully in love with her musician beau, Good Charlotte lead vocalist Joel Madden, but romance aside, the star’s musical tastes veer more toward the late ’80s and early ’90s, Madden has revealed.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight Canada, airing Thursday and conducted recently at Toronto’s Ultra Supper Club before Madden, 29, kicked off a deejay set, the rocker said, Richie, 26, “likes a lot of old stuff.”

“She’d probably like to hear a lot of fun stuff like New Kids on the Block or Bell Biv DeVoe or something like that,” he said. “She likes to have fun and listen to that stuff.”

He added, “I’m a cool dad. I can still go out and rock and roll a bit and hang out and deejay, but I’m definitely all about my family. Family first.”

As for the question on everyone’s mind - When are he and Richie getting married? - Madden said, “Right now we’re happy and everything is great. I’m moving at our own pace. We kind of do things our own style. So we’re happy.”

It’s all about family on Good Charlotte’s “Sounds of the Summer” tour. After bringing baby Harlow on the road to visit dad Joel Madden, Nicole Richie created a new tour video for the band’s online GCTV video series. The clip features photos of Harlow with a backstage pass and with Dad on the tour bus, plus footage of the band performing on stage. Says bassist Paul Thomas of Richie’s editing talents: “I think she’s got some skills.”
- Marisa Laudadio

For Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, the wedding bells can wait - at least for a little while.

“We don’t have any plans for that right now,” Madden told PEOPLE on Wednesday. “We’re just happy, and we’re being a family, and that’s where we’re at right now. But marriage means something different to everyone.”

As a celebrity DJ at the Oakley/Suzuki Celebrity Ride Day event in Perris, Calif., Madden took turns spinning records, and quelling notions of a summer rush to the altar.

“Right now we’re really happy,” the Good Charlotte frontman says, “and we’re concentrating on our family, and that’s what is making us happy right now. We’re moving at our own pace.”

His “awesome” Father’s Day was still very much on the mind of Joel Madden as he and his twin, Benji Madden, both talked to Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS-FM radio show Tuesday, to promote their Soundtrack of Your Summer Good Charlotte tour and new single, “Where Would We Be Now.”

But while it might have been expected that Joel - father of with Nicole Richie 5-month-old baby daughter Harlow, whom the proud dad said was teething - would be thinking paternally, whoever would have guessed that brother Benji would be similarly disposed?

“I’m so beyond happy,” Benji, 29, said of his hot relationship with Paris Hilton. “Of course,” he added, “when you’re that happy, you think about everything.”

Continued Benji: “I’ve never been so happy. Nothing worries me in life anymore. When you find that best friend, that love, all your worries kind of go away. Your work gets better and everything you do, you have someone supporting you, and she’s that for me. I’ve never been supported so much.”

In his repeated refrain, Benji said, “I’m a lucky guy. Her family is so nice to me. And now the four of us, we all … it’s great, you know.”

Could that possibly mean a double wedding? Responded both bothers, in unison: “No.”

• Reporting by JACKIE FIELDS

• Nicole Richie, sharing a booth with beau Joel Madden at L.A.’s hot Crown Bar. Richie joined her rocker boyfriend - who earlier had been sipping Red Bull with friends - after midnight, and the two immediately moved to a booth, looking “adorable” as they sat with Madden’s hand on Richie’s leg.

• Miley Cyrus, shopping at the Gap inside

Nashville’s Mall at Green Hills with her mom, Tish. The young singer

picked up some V-neck T-shirts, as well as the Kerry James Marshall artist

tee. But it was Cyrus’s mom who bought a whole outfit - including

yoga pants, white top, flip-flops and a scarf - which she put on right

in the store. Why the wardrobe change? A source says Tish was bothered

by the mall’s chilly temperature.

• Audrina Patridge, bonding over lunch at West Hollywood’s

Sushi Roku with sister Casey. The Hills star feasted on

favorites like the Hanabi (spicy tuna on crispy rice cake garnished with

chopped green onions). But they saved room for dessert: the Volcano - a

molten chocolate cake.

• Dancing with the Stars pro Cheryl Burke, briefly showing off her best dance moves

with a girlfriend at West Hollywood’s Coco de Ville.

• Adam Sandler, hosting a party for his cast and crew

following the L.A. premiere of You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. The

bash - thrown at Teddy’s inside the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel - drew

a who’s who of the comedy community, including Knocked Updirector Judd Apatow. Sandler’s pregnant wife, Jackie, smiled and

rubbed her baby bump at the bash, looking radiant as she mingled with

guests. Also there: Benji Madden, Russell Brand and Sandler’s pal

(and costar) Rob Schneider, who chatted with the Zohan himself for

most of the night.

Also Spotted …

• Brad Garrett, bobbing his head to the Police’s hit

“Roxanne” at the band’s Hollywood Bowl concert. Also in the

audience: Lisa Kudrow, taking in the show with a tall blonde

friend.

• By SHRUTI DHALWALA, JENNIFER GARCIA, ALYSSA SHELASKY and ABBY STERN

Celebrity Hot Spots.

Thursday’s Caught in the Act >

Nicole Richie and Joel Madden are balancing parenthood and coupledom by carving out time for dinner dates.

“We go out like once a week,” Joel Madden told PEOPLE at the opening of SugarFish sushi restaurant in Marina del Rey on Monday night. “We take a night to ourselves once a week.”

The couple also trade off baby duties. “I’ll stay home with the baby one night and then she’ll do the same - we do that a lot,” says Madden.

“On our nights off we always go to Nozawa” sushi in Studio City, adds Richie, “so it was really special to be able to come here tonight.”

Nursery rhymes are fine, but baby Harlow “likes The Cure,” proud papa - and weekend DJ - Joel Madden tells PEOPLE.

Madden, whose daughter with Nicole Richie, Harlow Winter Kate Madden, was born in January, jetted to the Hamptons for Memorial Day Weekend to spin records at La Playa in Southampton, but he’s not sticking around.

“The Hamptons are definitely a good place to hang out for the whole summer,” he told PEOPLE. “But I’m a dad now. I’d be staying if I didn’t have the girls at home. That’s why I’m going home.”

The crowd at La Playa “went nuts for Justin Timberlake, and for %26#91;Black Kids%26#93;’ ‘I’m Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance,’ Madonna, and Prince,” he said.

But for Harlow, Madden has a different playlist that includes “a lot of Disney stuff and classical. She likes Good Charlotte. And she likes her granddad %26#91;Lionel Richie%26#93;’s music. She likes old stuff. She’s a Cure fan … She likes The Cure.”

It’s no wonder Madden says one of his favorite things to do with Harlow is “listen to music and change diapers.”

• Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, joining

Lindsay Lohan at a table in Los Angeles’s newest hot

spot, Crown Bar. (Lohan, recently back from Paris, was there with

BFF Samantha Ronson, who was deejaying at the club.) Richie sipped

on a glass of white wine, then danced up a storm with Lohan and some female

friends. Madden, meanwhile, chatted with his guy friends at the table. When

Ronson spun the New Kids on the Block’s “You Got It (The Right Stuff),”

Richie pointed at Lohan mid-dance.

• At one point, Lohan and Ronson took a smoke break on the patio, and

when Ronson was ready to go inside, Lohan leaned over and gave her a kiss on

the cheek as Lohan finished her smoke. Later in the night, Lohan, who was

cheering Ronson on all night, joined her pal behind the deejay booth.

• Around midnight, Lauren Conrad and Lauren Bosworth said “hi” to Richie by the bar - then ditched their table

(with Stephanie Pratt) to join her on the dance floor. Richie and

Conrad held hands as they got down to the mix of retro and new songs.

• Blake Lively and Leighton Meester, celebrating their Nylon magazine covers with their Gossip Girl costars during an Armani Exchange-hosted dinner at Amalia in New

York. The ladies were joined by their male counterparts, Penn Badgley and Chace Crawford, who sat at the dinner with

some male buddies. While real-life couple Lively and Badgley didn’t get too romantic at dinner,

they did arrive (and leave) together, and whispered in each other’s ears at

the table. Also there: Michelle Trachtenberg, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and

Zachary Levi.

• Lauren Graham, chatting in an upbeat fashion after dinner

at West Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont with some friends. The former Gilmore Girls star wore her hair pulled back into a low, loose ponyta

and she sported a fitted cream blazer over dark pants and boots.

• Following New York Post reports that she recently

got “cozy” with a younger man at an upfronts party, Real Housewives of New York star LuAnn de Lesseps was spotted sitting with her husband, Alexandre Count de Lesseps, and causing a stir during dinner at Brio in New York. “They were loud; people were definitely looking,” an onlooker

tells us of the tense scene at the Italian restaurant. “The count looked

furious and she was leaning back in her chair.” Adds the onlooker: “He was

swearing and in a raised voice kept repeating to his wife, ‘You don’t

understand reality, you’re consumed by the show!’” But the couple denied any

strife on the red carpet at the American Image Awards. “Alex and I are very

happily married, and we’re very much together,” the countess tells us. And

her husband added: “I rarely speak about private matters, but I do agree

strongly with that.”

• By JENNIFER GARCIA, LIZA HAMM and JEFFREY SLONIM

Celebrity Hot Spots.

Thursday’s Caught in the Act .