Today we’d like to introduce you to Seante Johnson.
Hi Seante, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I had always wanted to start businesses. I also knew that I wanted one of those businesses to be a nonprofit. My heart has always been for the service of people in need in the community so I HAD to do something to give back.
Birthday Bash Box was founded in 2018. I got the idea after. my mother told me a story about a little girl who had grand birthday parties that everyone would come to. In attendance was another little girl who shared the same birthday, but no one knew because she was not celebrated. My mother continued the story and said that the girl was very sad and always distant from the other children. Hearing about what the little girl went through made me want to start Birthday Bash Box.
It did not sit well with me that some kids never experience having a special day because of misfortune.
I began this nonprofit with the mindset of setting a solid foundation for this business. As we grew, i wanted to focus on serving the community instead of fixing mistakes that were made at the beginning.
To set a solid foundation, I began with only fundraising for the organization in 2018. By the end of 2018, the Board of Directors and I had created a plan for our programs and raised enough money to begin celebrating birthdays in 2019.
Our goal was to start small and celebrate 1 classroom of children to test the Birthday Bash program. In this program, we celebrated the children by grade in large Birthday Parties in the school’s cafeteria. To help create excitement, we construct a fun backdrop that is placed on the stage for the children to take photos in front of.
In the Birthday Bash celebrations, the children are given a gift that they choose and a cupcake.
In our programs, we don’t just want to give birthday celebrations, we want the children to have an exciting learning experience. We do this by giving the children books to read that that choose. We also play games that are centered around Social Emotional Learning.
By the end of the year, we had surpassed our goal and celebrated an entire school of 654 elementary aged children. It was such an exciting year!
In January of 2020, we decided to begin our Birthday Box Program. This program would run at the same time as the Birthday Bash Program. Our goal was to celebrate One child a month to test the Birthday Box program. We wanted to make it as exciting as the in person celebrations while also including the educational resources.
After the shutdown from the pandemic in 2020, we decided to pause the in person celebrations and to only give out Birthday Boxes around the Greater Houston area. Instead of celebrating 12 children like we planned we ended up celebrating over 200 children.
As of right now, we are still celebrating children through the Birthday Box program,
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Our largest struggle as was at the start of the pandemic. In March of 2020, Due to COVID, we decided to quickly pivot our business plan to only do Birthday Boxes.
At the same time, the demand for Birthday Boxes increased exponentially. Due to this, we decided to forgo our plans and celebrate as many children as we could to try to meet the increasing need.
We are fortunate to have been able to partner with many businesses and community groups around Houston. Through these partnerships we have been able to celebrate more children than we planned and have exceeded all of our goals
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Birthday Bash Box is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that gifts children in under resourced families exciting birthday celebrations. This is done through our Birthday Bash and Birthday Box programs.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love the people in Houston. So many people, companies, and community groups have come together and celebrated so many children with us. We are immensely grateful for all of them.
Contact Info:
- Email: hello@birthdaybashbox.org
- Website: www.birthdaybashbox.org
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/birthdaybashbox
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/birthdaybashbox
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/birthdaybashbox
