FLORENCE – What started as a neighborhood Halloween display has morphed into a whole community of gift givers known by the collective of The Birthday Fairy.
“When we started the Halloween displays in Turtle Point, I felt it was a ministry to the kids who came,” founder Holley Hamm said. “Over that 10 years, we had kids who came from all over the area to trick-or-treat and I got as much from it as the kids did.”
But when she and her family moved, she lost that ministry and was looking for some other way to give back. It wasn’t long after that The Birthday Fairy was born of glitter, glue, and faith.
“In 2021, a friend asked if I could sponsor a kindergarten class at Harlan Elementary. So we made and decorated chair covers for each student’s chair,” Hamm said. “Later in the year, we did our first birthday party – it was for a little boy who had 13 brothers and sisters and it was the only party he got. We ended up doing birthday parties for each of the 18 kids in the class.”
Since it went so well with the first class, the school asked Hamm to do birthday parties for the entire Harlan kindergarten. And with help from her friends, she pulled it off.
“A group of friends raised money and we took care of 100 kindergartners and special education students at Threadgill Elementary,” she said. “The following year in 2022-2023, we held parties for 200 students.
“Now we have a donor who has helped us do parties for special needs students at L.E. Willson Elementary in Sheffield, and R.E. Thompson Intermediate and G.W. Trenholm Primary in Tuscumbia.”
The Birthday Fairy exists to create magical birthday moments for Shoals-area kindergarten and special needs (K-5) students in qualifying Title 1 schools. In 2023-2024, the organization celebrated 301 children, Hamm said. She is expecting to serve more than 400 in the 2024-2025 school year.
With so many children to plan parties for, Hamm knew she needed some additional help, so she reached out to students at the University of North Alabama, and through word of mouth, sororities, fraternities, and athletes began offering to volunteer.
“God put it on my heart to reach out to college students,” Hamm said. “The sororities at UNA have been so helpful, and through Megan Dye in athletics we got more teams, like The Roar dance team, involved.
“It was unexpected to see college kids want to be part of this and we’ve had to create more opportunities for them to volunteer because they enjoy it so much. And it’s not just girls – the fraternities and men’s teams have joined in, too.”
Volunteer nights are a flurry of glitter, sparkles, glue, felt, Spiderman figures, cutout fish, trucks, unicorns, and various other craft supplies used to decorate chair covers. The volunteers, after learning a little about their student, choose backpacks and decorate and sign birthday cards for the kids. Backpacks are stuffed with flashcards, journals, books, crayons, pencil pouches, and sensory toys for special needs children.
After the celebration, The Birthday Fairy (with permission from students’ parents) posts on social media and sends photos of the birthday child to the volunteers so they can see the impact of their time and caring.
The Birthday Fairy Instagram account shows UNA football and softball players surprising students, sorority women crafting chair covers and cards, fraternity men selling lemonade to raise money for the project, Miss Northwest Shoals celebrating a student, and even Batman showing up in his car for a special young boy.
“There’s really joy in doing things for these children and the college students feel it, too,” Hamm said. “The Birthday Fairy ministry has pulled together the community to make birthdays even more special for local children.”
If you’d like to become part of The Birthday Fairy mission to help local children realize “I am loved!” “I am important!” and “I am worth celebrating!”, reach out to Hamm at [email protected] or call 256-554-1414.
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