The Birthday Project & The Thanksgiving Project

Watch Video: The Birthday Project & The Thanksgiving Project by Jill Smokler, ...
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The Birthday Project & The Thanksgiving Project

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Scary Mommy Nation is a 501-C3 charity which stemmed from a really innocent blog post. Two years ago, around Thanksgiving, I noticed a trend in the confessional of people making statements about not being able to afford Thanksgiving dinner, or having to cancel the holiday because they couldn't afford the turkey, having to dilute milk with water, and I wrote a blog post to the community just saying, "There are some people on this website who are really struggling, and maybe some of you aren't, and wouldn't it be amazing if we could really team up and help give these people a Thanksgiving dinner?" I offered to support the first dinner, and I found somewhere online that the average Thanksgiving dinner is $50, so I said, "Either give $50 or we can partner two people who give $25 and we can sponsor another family, which would be amazing." I thought maybe we would get three or four families. It ended up helping 400 families that first Thanksgiving. It raised $10,000 in a matter of days, and once that happened I realized that I couldn't just stop there. Once you realize that people want to give and just want a way to be able to help, you can't just close up shop and say, "Okay, I'm done, you guys are fed" you know, "I'm going home." So I started the charity, and now we have something called the Birthday Project, which is, if anyone in the community has a child with a birthday coming up, and they can't afford a birthday present for their child, Scary Mommy Nation will purchase a toy, and send it all wrapped up in time for their birthday. We have a catalogue of toys to choose from. The Thanksgiving Project is ongoing, and then we've had a couple of circumstances where community members have really needed specific help, so we've been able to step in and give grants. It's amazing to have a community who's so generous, not only with their support, but financial as well

Watch Video: The Birthday Project & The Thanksgiving Project by Jill Smokler, ...

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Jill Smokler

Author & Owner, Scary Mommy

What started as an innocent on-line baby book to chronicle Jill Smokler’s stay-at-home days with her children, (Lily, 9, Ben, 7 and Evan, 5) quickly transformed into a vibrant community of parents, brought together by a common theme: Parenting doesn’t have to be perfect. Jill’s honest take on parenting has appeared in numerous publications and on television programs, including The Today ShowThe New York Times, Good Morning America, Nightline and CNN.

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