You can help low-income fathers receive essential gear to help them care for their children this Giving Tuesday through a donation to one of NYC Dads Group’s longtime charitable partners, GOOD+ Foundation.

GOOD+ Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that collects and distributes children’s clothes and other items for families in need, is collecting monetary donations today that will be used to pay for “Dad Toolkits.” These toolkits include critical items such as diapers, diaper wipes, an infant front carrier, a car seat, a stroller, a high chair and safety gate. The organization will donate the dad toolkits to low-income fathers enrolled in its grantee programs.

Bank of America has agreed to match every dollar, up to $50,000 in total, donated to this Giving Tuesday GOOD+ fundraiser.

++ Donate to purchase Dad Toolkits for fathers in need ++

GOOD+ Foundation has been especially focused in recent years on assisting fathers in need and getting them more active and involved with their families. As stated on its website, “When fathers get the assistance they need, children have a better chance of success, mothers have the support of a responsible co-parent and communities are strengthened as a whole.”

GOOD+ Foundation, formerly known as Baby Buggy, was founded in 2001 by Jessica Seinfeld shortly after the birth of her first child to comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Since then, it has donated almost $42 million in children’s items to a national network of more than 125 antipoverty programs. In 2017, 90 cents of every dollar donated went directly back into GOOD+ Foundation programs, its website states.

City / NYC Dads Group co-founders Matt Schneider and Lance Somerfeld are members of GOOD+ Foundation’s Fatherhood Leadership Council.

Dallas Dads Group Teams up with Plum Organics for Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday is a global day of outreach on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. The premise is to start the holiday season in a meaningful way by inspiring people to collaborate with non-profit organizations and give back in their local communities. For the second year in a row, Plum Organics partnered with Dallas Dads Group to target child hunger in North Texas.  Plum Organics generously donated an entire pallet of baby food to Hope Supply Co.  Members of Dallas Dads Group volunteered to sort and package the food so it could be distributed across the DFW metroplex and end up with children who need it.

Nationally

Dallas Dads Group was honored to be one of the 12 City Dads Group chapters to partner with Plum Organics for this Giving Tuesday initiative. City Dads Groups across the country from New York City to Los Angeles volunteered their time with local organizations to help unpack Plum Organics donations and sort food, clothing, and whatever else was needed. Take a look at this short video that shows City Dads Group members nationwide in action on Giving Tuesday.

Locally

Locally, our group worked with Hope Supply Co. to unpack and stock the pallet of Plum Organics baby food pouches. Hope Supply Co’s mission is to provide critical items including food, diapers, clothing, and school supplies to homeless children across North Texas. They work with a large network of partner organizations to help deliver supplies to families in need. Plum’s large donation of food allowed them to replenish their depleted shelves before the holidays. Baby food is not one of the items that Hope Supply Co. purchases with their limited funds.  Instead, they are entirely reliant on donations. This donation helped to ensure they have baby food to supply to children in need.

Our group helped unpack and get the pouches ready to be delivered. With just the Plum Organics donation we were able to fully stock their shelves, which were full with only about a quarter of the donation. We are incredibly thankful that we were able to help out the local and not quite so local (this donation will be distributed across 5 counties in North Texas) children in Texas. Before we even left for the day, some of the food was already on it’s way to families in need.

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics partnered with City Dads Group for the mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.

Now that we are firmly into 2018 we can’t help but want to take a quick look back on one of our favorite meetups of the past year.  Along with  11 other City Dads Group chapters, we participated in Giving Tuesday by helping local charities that help feed hungry children in our communities with the help of our partner, Plum Organics.

Here is a little video the City Dads Group made to showcase how it went:

Plum Organics, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand, donated more than 41,000 pouches of their tasty meals to help children in need.  For our part, the Chicago Dads Group teamed up with the Palatine Township Food Pantry to collect food and deliver the generous donation from Plum Organics.

Giving back is one of our favorite ways to get together here in the Chicagoland area.  There is a lot of need here and we are lucky to make such great connections with brands, like Plum Organics, who help encourage and support our initiatives.

Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, is a global day of outreach dedicated to helping others. It’s meant to kick-off the holiday season by inspiring people to collaborate in improving their local communities. Since its 2012 inception, tens of thousands of organizations worldwide annually participate in the day. This was the fourth year in-a-row that we have joined with other City Dads groups around the country and participated in this day of giving back through service, and we’re looking forward to doing even more!

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics partnered with City Dads Group for the mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.

With the holiday giving season still fresh in everyone’s memories, City Dads Group proudly presents this short video recapping the great work our members in a dozen U.S. cities did this past Giving Tuesday with the help of our partner, Plum Organics.

Plum Organics, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand, donated more than 41,000 pouches of their tasty meals to help children in need through organizations 12 chapters selected. Our dads in those chapters pitched in to unpack, sort and resort those pouches for distribution, and performed other service work such as sorting clothes, stocking pantry shelves and spiffing up community facilities.

Our City Dads members shot video of their actions and San Francisco Dads Group organizer Mike Heenan compiled and edited together their work into the video.

Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, is a global day of outreach dedicated to helping others. It’s meant to kick-off the holiday season by inspiring people to collaborate in improving their local communities. Since its 2012 inception, tens of thousands of organizations worldwide annually participate in the day.

Giving Tuesday 2017 marked the fourth consecutive year City Dads groups around the country have participated in this day of giving back through service. Plum Organics also served as our national sponsor in 2016.

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics partnered with City Dads Group for the mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.

What do you get when you add together the NYC Dads Group, the GOOD+ Foundation, and Plum Organics?

Food and clothing delivered to the underprivileged for the holidays, starting on Giving Tuesday.

Plum Organics, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand, delivered pallets of food — most weighing over 400 pounds, to various cities around the country with chapters of City Dads Group. Here in New York, the Plum Organic products were delivered to the GOOD+ Foundation, a nonprofit group that works with a network of more than 100 community-based organizations throughout the United States to distribute essentials to families in need. GOOD+ Foundation added care packages of children’s clothing to the outgoing food deliveries.

Enter the NYC Dads Group. Gotham’s fathers sorted the clothing by gender and size so it would be ready to go out to needy children in the community.

If you’re going to have enough clothes to make a difference, then you are going to need a lot of clothes, and a veritable mountain awaited our dad.

The dads weren’t daunted in the least. They immediately set to work, determined to have everything ready to go for Giving Tuesday.

As all parents know, getting time away from your family isn’t the easiest thing to do, but the opportunity to help Plum Organics and the GOOD+ Foundation assist children and families in need got a huge turnout.

When asked why they were doing this, our volunteers gave enthusiastic answers. “I’m here to help the community,” said NYC Dads Group member Jeff Chew.

“I look forward to this every year,” said Larry Interrante, a longtime group member from Queens. “How can you not want to help out children living in your community?”

The dads ended up having quite a lot of fun that night. When you’re doing good, and doing it along side some good friends, well – surprise – you get into a good mood.

“We’re proud to be working with Plum Organics, and helping the GOOD+ Foundation get some much needed clothing and food to the underprivileged in our community,” said NYC and City Dads Group co-founder Lance Somerfeld. “Hanging with a bunch of great guys just adds to all of it!”

It was amazing how quickly our dads tore through their work. It seemed to be all done in mere moments. Inspired dads are efficient dads.

It turned out to be an entertaining and fulfilling evening. You’d be surprised how much fun you can have sorting children’s clothes.

Few experiences are as rewarding as helping children who need it. In many ways, that’s exactly what being a fathers should be about.

You don’t inspire people with your words, you inspire them with your actions. If you’re a father, you’re a role model, whether you like it or not. Your job is to set a good example. Full stop.

Thank you, Plum Organics, for helping us be good examples.

(All photos by Chad R. MacDonald)

NYC Dads Group needs a dozen good fathers from its membership to help with its Giving Tuesday 2017 outreach work.

Volunteers will be needed Monday night, Nov. 27, to help sort and bundle more than 400 pounds of food donated by Plum Organics®, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand. The next day the food will be distributed by GOOD+ Foundation, a nonprofit group that works with a network of more than 100 community-based organizations across the country to distribute essentials to families in need.

* Sign up to help us with Giving Tuesday 2017 *

NYC Dads is one of 12 City Dads Group chapters across the United States that Plum Organics is working with this year to help nourish children and assist families in need on Nov. 28, Giving Tuesday, an international day of helping others that follows Thanksgiving. Last year for Giving Tuesday Plum Organics donated more than 24,000 meals to charitable organizations chosen by seven City Dads Group chapters.

“We are proud to expand our Giving Tuesday partnership with Plum Organics to support nonprofits that support families in need across the United States,” said Matt Schneider, co-founder of City Dads Group. “Our dads are very proud to be able to provide time and much needed food to our communities.”

This will be fourth consecutive year NYC Dads Group has participated in Giving Tuesday activities. In years past, it has collected, sorted and bundled clothes or food for the GOOD+ and its predecessor, Baby Buggy.

Giving Tuesday started in 2012, in part as a response to the commercialism of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events. The event started as a collaboration between New York’s 92nd Street Y, a longtime NYC Dads Group partner, and the United Nations Foundation. Tens of thousands of organizations worldwide now participate in the annual day.

NYC Dads Group members and others who are not able to participate can follow our work on Twitter and Instagram. By using hashtags #PlumParents and #GivingTuesday, you can see pictures of our dads across the country supporting families in need.

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics is partnering with City Dads Group for the Giving Tuesday work mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.

City Dads Group and Plum Organics® will again work together to help nourish children and assist families in need on Giving Tuesday, an international day of helping others that follows Thanksgiving.

On Nov. 28, City Dads in 12 U.S. metropolitan areas will help pack and distribute food donated by Plum Organics, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand. Plum Organics last year for Giving Tuesday donated more than 24,000 meals to charitable organizations chosen by our chapters in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco and the Minneapolis/St. Paul.

** Watch video of our 2016 Giving Tuesday work **

“We are proud to expand our Giving Tuesday partnership with Plum Organics to support nonprofits that support families in need across the United States,” said Matt Schneider, co-founder of City Dads Group. “Our dads are very proud to be able to provide time and much needed food to our communities.”

Where we are helping on Giving Tuesday

Our members will help pack, stock and distribute the Plum Organics donation and perform other volunteer work to the following organizations:

• Boston/Providence Dads Group have chosen to assist the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, which will distribute the food through its 160 agency partners that reach 57,000 individuals monthly.
• The Charlotte Dads Group plans to work with Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, which distributed more than 50 million pounds of food and household items throughout its 19 county service region during its most recent fiscal year.
• Chicago Dads Group will assist clients of Palatine Township Food Pantry, an organization that serves an average of 345 families each month.
• Dallas Dads Group has chosen to work with Hope Supply Co. which assists 1,100 homeless children in North Texas every day.
• The Fresno Dads Group will work with Community Food Bank, which serves more than 280,000 people each month through a variety of programs.
• Kansas City Dads Group has chosen to help Harvesters Community Food Network, a regional food bank serving northwestern Missouri and northeastern Kansas that assists more than 620 not-for-profit agencies.
• The Los Angeles and NYC Dads Groups will again help GOOD+ Foundation, a nonprofit group that works with a network of more than 100 community-based organizations across the country to distribute essentials to families in need.
• Madison Dads Group in Wisconsin will assist the Goodman Community Center, which helps income-limited families through a food pantry, before- and after-school programs and other services.
• Our Portland Dads Group will work with the Oregon Food Bank, a central hub for supplying food pantries across the entire Pacific Northwest state.
• San Francisco Dads Group has selected the SF-Marin Food Bank to be its partner. The nonprofit provides more than 100,000 meals a day through 250 area food pantries.
• Twin Cities Dads Group in Minnesota will volunteer with Second Harvest Heartland, one of the nation’s largest food banks.

“At Plum, our mission is to nourish little ones with the very best food from the very first bite. Back in 2013, we founded The Full Effect® program to extend our mission to little ones in need. In America, 1 in 5 children is food insecure. That’s approximately 13 million kids,” Mandy Geisler, senior marketing manager at Plum Organics, said in a written statement. “The global giving movement Giving Tuesday is a great platform to raise awareness about this issue. By partnering with City Dads Group again this year, we’re able to bring organic baby food donations to organizations in twelve of their locations nationwide.”

City Dads Group members and others who are not able to participate in any of these events in person can follow our work on Twitter and Instagram. By using hashtags #PlumParents and #GivingTuesday, you can see pictures of our dads across the country supporting families in need.

Giving Tuesday is a global day of outreach dedicated to helping others. It’s meant to kick-off the holiday season and inspire people to collaborate in improving their local communities. Since its 2012 inception, tens of thousands of organizations worldwide annually participate in the day.

This will be the fourth consecutive year City Dads outposts around the country have participated in Giving Tuesday activities, and the second that Plum Organics has served as our national sponsor.

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics is partnering with City Dads Group for the Giving Tuesday work mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.

City Dads Group and Plum Organics® teamed to support children and families in need Nov. 29 by donating, packing and distributing food in seven U.S. locations as part of our Giving Tuesday outreach efforts. Watch this video, compiled by and produced by San Francisco Dad Group member Mike Heenan, to see our fathers in action:

Plum Organics, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand, donated more than 24,000 meals (almost three tons of food!) to charitable organizations chosen by City Dads Group chapters in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco and the Minneapolis/St. Paul.

In addition:

• The Charlotte Dads Group donated to the Salvation Army angel tree and partnered with Trees Charlotte to plant 300 trees at a local middle school.
• Our Las Vegas group made a large donation of clothing, toys and grooming supplies to Safe Nest, a center that helps men, women, and children who are victims of domestic crisis.
• Our Chicago dads also packed food for the Feed My Starving Children nonprofit.
• The NYC Dads Group also helped sort and bundle clothes for GOOD+ Foundation, a nonprofit group that works with a network of more than 100 community-based organizations across the country to distribute essentials to families in need.

LA Dads members (and one Mom) volunteered this morning for Giving Tuesday at the Good+ Foundation in Los Angeles. We had a really great time sorting, counting, packing, and even dancing as we packed Plum Organics Super Smoothies for families in need across Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the hunger capital of the United States (there are more people who are “food insecure” than any other major City in the U.S.) and so the nutritious food from Plum Organics will help LA-area families eat healthy. Plum Organics is the nation’s #1 organic baby food brand and we are so grateful for their donation of their Super Smoothie organic superfoods snacks as well as their commitment to using business as a force for good.

Check out and share some of the photos from our event!

What is #GivingTuesday?

#GivingTuesday is a global day of outreach dedicated to helping others meant to kick-off the holiday season and inspire people to collaborate in improving their local communities and to give back in impactful ways to the charities and causes.

#GivingTuesday started in 2012, in part as a response to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events. It originated as a collaboration between New York’s 92nd Street Y, a longtime NYC Dads Group partner, and the United Nations Foundation. Tens of thousands of organizations worldwide annually participate in the day.

This will be third consecutive year City Dads outposts around the country have participated in #GivingTuesday activities, but it is the first time the fatherhood support network has had a national sponsor for its work. In past years, our chapter members from San Francisco to New York City have assisted at local food banks, held diaper drives, and donated goods and clothes to shelters for homeless or abused children.

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics is partnering with City Dads Group for the #GivingTuesday work mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.

Dallas Dads Group members are needed Nov. 21 to help sort food donated by Plum Organics®, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand, that will help feed local families in need this holiday season.

The effort is part of #GivingTuesday, a global day of outreach on Nov. 24th. #GivingTuesday is dedicated to helping others meant to kick-off the holiday season and inspire people to collaborate in improving their local communities and to give back in impactful ways to the charities and causes.

The benefactor of our manual labor and Plum Organics generosity will be the food pantry of Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas, which helps local families in need regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or ability to pay.

Sign up here to participate: Plum Organics Volunteer Opportunity

The Dallas donation is one of seven Plum Organics has made as part of a #GivingTuesday partnership with our parent, City Dads Group. In all, Plum Organics will donate more than 24,000 meals to charitable organizations chosen by seven City Dads Groups across the country.

“We are thrilled to join forces with Plum Organics to help families in need across the United States this holiday season,” said Matt Schneider, co-founder of City Dads Group. “#GivingTuesday has become a staple of our annual calendar, and we appreciate the opportunity to give back to these important local organizations.”

#GivingTuesday started in 2012, in part as a response to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events. It originated as a collaboration between New York’s 92nd Street Y, a longtime NYC Dads Group partner, and the United Nations Foundation. Tens of thousands of organizations worldwide annually participate in the day.

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics is partnering with City Dads Group for the #GivingTuesday work mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.