Today we’d like to introduce you to Tanvi Barman.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
When I was seven years old, my mom first exposed me to homelessness. My family is a big believer of “Love All, Serve All”, and community service. My parents taught my sister and I to always give back to our community and took us to the homeless shelter every weekend. Every Sunday morning, my mom, my sister, and I would wake up early to cook and serve breakfast for the residents at the shelter. Since I was too young to do much of those things, I would honestly just help push the plates forward and serve utensils. At the very end though I would always eat breakfast with the other kids at the shelter too. One month, during the month of September, as we were all eating breakfast, I excitedly told them about my birthday party that weekend. All the lavish things my parents had planned for me and all my friends and family that were going to come. But as I was telling them, I wasn’t getting the same enthusiastic responses I was sharing with them. Instead, I got dull and blank looks. Confused, I went home and asked my parents if these kids got birthday parties. And they said honestly they didn’t know either. They just explained to me the environment these children grow up, how their parents are already struggling financially to make ends meet that a birthday party was probably not on the top of their priority list.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. After I found out that these children did not get birthday parties, I decided to throw one experimental birthday party at my local homeless shelter for one of the girls residing there. During my eight grade summer, I received the girl’s name, her age, and how many other kids were also going to be attending the birthday party that also lived in the shelter. I went door to door to my local shopping center and asked for their goods and services to help me throw a birthday party for this girl. They all said no to me since I wasn’t a legit nonprofit, I did not have any charity affiliation or I did not work with any organization like YMCA or Girl Scouts, etc. I was just a girl with a binder asking if they would support me. Initially, the first year, there was a lot of struggles and a lot of my things were personally funded through my parents and my own pocket money since I did not have any vendors who were willing to donate to me. Once I built a website and had pictures, it became easier. And then, once I had nonprofit status (501C3) it became even easier to get new partnerships and corporations to work with us.
We’d love to hear more about your organization.
No Birthday Left Behind is a 501c3 nonprofit organization the celebrates birthday parties for homeless shelter kids. NBLB’s mission is to provide every homeless shelter child an opportunity to celebrate their birthday in a special and memorable way! We partner with vendors such as pizza, cake, entertainment, decorations, etc. who donate their goods and services monthly to help throw a full-blown birthday celebration for these kids. We have NBLB chapters all across the Bay Area and have expanded to Southern CA, San Diego, and numerous states across the U.S. such as Colorada, Texas, Maryland, etc. There are lots of volunteer organizations who just donate but NBLB provides them with an experience not just simply donations and volunteers.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I think that I am extremely lucky to have media keep approaching me and my business. National media exposure (CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN) has definitely help scale NBLB across America, garner up to $45,000 in donations, and gained the support of many vendors.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://nobirthdayleftbehind.com/
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nobirthdayleftbehind/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%20%40NBLB_US&src=typed_query
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