Project Description

The mission of The Birthday Party Project is to celebrate the lives of children who are living in marginalized communities or suffering from recent emotional trauma through bimonthly surprise birthday parties and other forms of appreciation. We reach out to children who are in transitional living; in single-parent or foster homes; immigrants and refugees, etc. We hope that our efforts illuminate the transformative, healing power that is the joy of inclusion. So often the basic needs of the recipients are scarcely met, so it is vital to do something fantastically out of the ordinary for our participants.

This project is important to me: my father died from colon cancer when I was 9 and my classmates threw me a surprise birthday party the following year. It meant so much to me to be included, and I want to reach out to people who are facing difficult times in their lives.

The project was started by a seed grant from Youth Venture. The money was immediately put towards a fundraiser dance, which generated more funds. Organizing, planning, and hosting the birthday parties has been a “piece of cake” for The Birthday Party Project. Fundraising, conversely, has been more akin to whacking a piñata—it takes some hard knocks, mainly seemingly unfruitful, but all the mistakes usually lead to a big pay-off. In the past, the project has relied on event fundraising, which is inherently stressful, high-risk and time- and energy-consuming, especially considering how the organization itself is already based on birthday parties.

As I am settling into college this year as a freshmen, making time for the intense event-planning that The Birthday Party Project necessitates has been a challenge. In addition, since I will be transplanting the project to the Bay Area, I am rebuilding a base to support the project. This base will consist of volunteers, donors, and the network of social justice organizations from which the participants are recruited.

Special Thanks to:
- Ashley Bakre and Marilin Velez for their service on the original executive board
- Ms. Patricia Bresnahan, Mr. Edward Juillard, Ms. Patricia Helbig, and Ms. Elaine Mueller for their crucial recommendations
- Youth Venture, Nestle Very Best in Youth, and Kohl's Kids Who Care for their financial and moral support
- the Interfaith Refugee and Immigrant Ministries of Chicago for entrusting your wonderful group of kids in my care for a fun-filled day
- the entire St. Ignatius College Prep community, especially my friends, who have been supported the project since its inception

Much love to you all!

Project Description

The Reality Check has been working extremly hard with getting the community together and feel that although we have been trying our best, there is still so much more that needs to be done.
This summer, our main goal is going to be making the lives of homeless people in our community a little more happy & healthy and a lot less stressed.
One of the main things that we want to go, is give back to the kids. Yeah, we feed them, and donate our old stuff. But do they ever really get anything new? They never chose to be out on the streets, that's just how they have been brought up.
So we want to raise money for them. We have been doing fundraisers, car washes and everything in the book but we are no where near any type of donation that we would like to donate.
We, as a team, brainstormed possibly throwing a benefit night and do a "dance marathon" to raise money to "revamp" our neighborhood homeless shelter. People would get sponsered to dance all night, and we would collect the money, plus additional people that want to come in and dance for just a little bit. It could be a really big thing, and get press, etc. Which could lead to REALLY generous donations.
With the money we save up, we could hopefully donate a large share to our local homeless shelter but also a large portion could go to projects we've come up with for the kids.
Such as getting a box and filling it with toys so that when its a child's birthday he/she can go in and pick a present. And they would be getting something whether they're parents could've afforded one or not.
Also, for holidays such as christmas, etc. Getting people to buy gifts for the kids who might not have gotton presents otherwise.
Or for the new school year. Getting gift cards for kids to get a brand new outfit for the first day. Or school supplies, so that they can still be hip.
We have so many more creative ideas just waiting to surface. !!! We are so excited with this idea and cannot wait to find what the future has in store with this project!

Project Description

The Reality Check has been working extremly hard with getting the community together and feel that although we have been trying our best, there is still so much more that needs to be done.
This summer, our main goal is going to be making the lives of homeless people in our community a little more happy & healthy and a lot less stressed.
One of the main things that we want to go, is give back to the kids. Yeah, we feed them, and donate our old stuff. But do they ever really get anything new? They never chose to be out on the streets, that's just how they have been brought up.
So we want to raise money for them. We have been doing fundraisers, car washes and everything in the book but we are no where near any type of donation that we would like to donate.
We, as a team, brainstormed possibly throwing a benefit night and do a "dance marathon" to raise money to "revamp" our neighborhood homeless shelter. People would get sponsered to dance all night, and we would collect the money, plus additional people that want to come in and dance for just a little bit. It could be a really big thing, and get press, etc. Which could lead to REALLY generous donations.
With the money we save up, we could hopefully donate a large share to our local homeless shelter but also a large portion could go to projects we've come up with for the kids.
Such as getting a box and filling it with toys so that when its a child's birthday he/she can go in and pick a present. And they would be getting something whether they're parents could've afforded one or not.
Also, for holidays such as christmas, etc. Getting people to buy gifts for the kids who might not have gotton presents otherwise.
Or for the new school year. Getting gift cards for kids to get a brand new outfit for the first day. Or school supplies, so that they can still be hip.
We have so many more creative ideas just waiting to surface. !!! We are so excited with this idea and cannot wait to find what the future has in store with this project!