At Birthday Wishes, we empower and support the social-emotional needs of families experiencing homelessness, by helping build a foundation for healthy self-confidence and self-esteem through birthday celebrations. We encourage and enable caregivers to carry the tradition of hosting a birthday party at their shelter so they can show their child how much they love and value them.

We believe that by supporting the whole family, especially during times of celebration, we can reduce the long-term effects of stress and trauma caused by homelessness. By supporting the social-emotional needs of both the caregiver(s) and child through our programming, we help strengthen the child-caregiver relationship, which is key to any child’s development and academic success. Our programming is designed to be and is integrated into the shelter support programs of our shelter partners to allow families experiencing homelessness to heal and be successful in forming connections with the community. Without our programming and partnership, most caregivers living in a shelter would not be able to have a birthday celebration for their child.

Goal One: Develop a more robust infrastructure and build capacity so we can serve families experiencing homelessness for years to come. This includes building sustainability around the delivery of boxes from our Massachusetts and New York offices to local shelters across six states the development and implementation of partner shelter and caregiver surveys to better understand the needs.

Goal Two: Continue to work towards meeting the diverse needs of the populations we serve. Many of our families are English learners and have different learning needs. We want to work towards being able to provide party decorations and birthday gifts written in a child’s native language, so language is not a barrier while providing sensory items for those children that need them.  

Goal Three: With feedback from those we serve, we have are piloting programs like the Baby BIRTHday Bundle designed for moms with newborn babies. The bundle provides critical items that new moms need to care for their baby. It consists of an infant bathtub, soap, shampoo, lotion, towels, diapers, wipes, onesies, swaddle blankets, and diaper cake.