Woman Throws Homeless Kids 'Mind-Blowing' Birthday Parties
Children in homeless shelters often don’t have the luxury of having birthday parties or receiving presents, but Dallas resident and event planner Paige Chenault set out to change all that when she founded the Birthday Party Project — a nonprofit that brings birthday parties to homeless children in shelters.
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While pregnant with her daughter seven years ago, Chenault was reading an article about kids’ birthday parties and dreaming about the celebratory bashes she’d throw her own child one day. Then she came across another article — this one about a little boy living in devastated Haiti. “I still remember his face,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “It struck me like a punch in the gut that this kid has nothing. Here I am dreaming about what I’m going to do for my kid, and there’s this child who will probably never know what being celebrated is or feels like. I thought, ‘I want to fix this.’”
Chenault decided to use her talent as an event planner to help homeless children have birthday celebrations. Although it took a few years to get it off the ground, she launched the Birthday Party Project in 2012 with the goal of throwing birthday parties for homeless children living in her home state of Texas. Nearly four years later, the project has expanded to homeless and transitional facilities in eight different cities in the U.S., including San Francisco, Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and New York City, thanks to volunteers. One mom who attended a birthday party for her son at a domestic violence shelter in Texas called the experience “mind-blowing.”
In 2015, the organization will host a total of 180 parties, and have celebrated more than 1,350 birthdays since it was founded.
Parties are held once a month — with different themes ranging from “pirates and princesses” to “monster mash” — to celebrate every child who has a birthday that particular month. “We commit to coming every month for a year,” she says. “We want to be consistent because the kids need that consistency.”
The Birthday Party Project runs on donations, and 90 percent of every dollar raised goes to the parties, notes Chenault. Kids can also help by creating a fundraising page that donates to the project in lieu of birthday gifts or by donating presents and party supplies to the organization. “Everyone can do something, including children,” says Chenault. “You can install that generosity at an early age.”
Chenault says the best part of her job is watching the faces of the children at the shelters celebrate their birthdays. “My favorite part is the last moment at the party,” she says. “The kids are staring at this audience singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to them, and then there’s this calm that comes over them. Their confidence builds. Then the smiles erupt. It’s this moment where the community comes together, and it wouldn’t be possible without a birthday party.”
(Photos by The Birthday Party Project)
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