Birthdays For All is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Charleston, South Carolina. We operate on the belief that every child deserves to celebrate their birthday. Our mission is to brighten the lives of children in Foster Care by providing birthday presents on their special day.
We work with the South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS) to get wishlists from foster children so that they can receive the gifts they really want. We are the only nonprofit providing birthday presents to foster children in the Lowcountry, including Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties.
Birthdays For All was founded in 2015 by husband and wife duo, Steffi Green and Ben Wong. Having successfully completed a long international adoption process, Ben and Steffi became very knowledgeable about the state of adoption and foster care in South Korea.
The experience made them more receptive to news about adoption and foster care when they settled in Charleston, South Carolina.
Steffi Green (Founder and Executive Director) is a native Charleston resident and Charleston School of Law Graduate. She is married to Ben Wong and they have two children ages 4 and 7. Steffi practiced law for a short while but decided to stop in order to be a stay-at-home mom. While planning Birthday parties for her children she wanted to give back to local children and make their Birthdays more special. Steffi decided to make it easier for local parents who want to make a difference for Children in foster care. With the support of Charleston County DSS, Birthdays For All was formed.
Ben Wong (Founder and Director) was studying in London, England when he met his Charleston native wife, Steffi, who convinced him to move to Charleston in 2007. Ben is currently the Senior Manager of Digital Services at Blackbaud. He loves working with nonprofits and was excited to start an organization of his own to benefit local children. Ben’s skills in web design, programming, photography, digital marketing and nonprofit expertise helped Birthdays For All get started raising money online without any costs to the organization.
One day, while Steffi was looking for ideas for a birthday party for their two children, she came across a series of articles from the Post and Courier about the state of foster care in South Carolina. These were stories about the deficiency in the foster care system, and the severe shortage of foster families to care for the number of foster children.
The lack of foster parents led the state to have 25% of its foster children under the age of 13 living in groups homes.
The national average is 4%
Steffi felt the urge to do something special for these foster children. She was unable to shake the thought that many of them are not with their parents on their birthday. Even those lucky enough to be with a foster family, birthdays are often forgotten and not celebrated due to a lack of resources.
What if the community could help make a difference for them on their one special day?
Ben was working at Blackbaud on the day he received the text message from Steffi that he would never forget. It said:
“I am starting a nonprofit and I need your help. Will talk tonight. Love you!”
He called her back immediately to find out what she was thinking. She told him that she wanted to start a nonprofit called Birthdays For All to provide birthday presents to children in foster care in the Lowcountry.
That night, they talked about how they were going to turn that simple idea into a reality. Fueled by excitement, they both got to work. Over the following weeks, Steffi worked on the business administration during the day, while Ben worked on the brand and website at night. Less than 30 days later, they launched Birthdays For All to the world on Lowcountry Giving Day. Coincidentally, it was also Foster Care Awareness month.
It didn’t take long before people started showing their support for Birthdays For All. They received hundreds of ‘likes’ on the Facebook page within a couple of weeks, and started receiving just enough donations to start buying presents.
We found out that wrapping hundreds of presents would take Steffi an entire week. So she decided to ask friends and volunteers from the community to get together on a Sunday afternoon to get all the presents wrapped in a couple of hours.
Local businesses in the Charleston area started reaching out to offer their help. We loved the idea of the community coming together for a good cause, so we used their help to organize our first fun-filled Toy Drive event for the whole family to enjoy.
