You know Father’s Day is near when you see members of our City Dads Groups across the nation popping up all over your TV screens and social media feeds. And 2018 was no exception to the rule.

Our biggest appearance came on Father’s Day 2018 itself. City Dads Group co-founder Lance Somerfeld joined CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca on a segment discussing how the “dad look” is fashionably hip (as if we didn’t know).

He forgot to tell Rocca to — please — don’t believe the fanny pack hype. Or that dads would blow $1,000 on butt-ugly Gucci sneakers. We like our butt-ugly at bargain prices.

Father’s Day 2018 also saw the opening of Incredibles 2, which received some hype for superhero Mr. Incredible becoming a stay-at-home dad. That brought the media to our door. Several of our members, including NYC Dads Group member Andrew Bentley, are quoted in a story on Refinery29 about being real-life superheroes.

“Superheroes represent our aspirations, individually and collectively. They have the abilities we want. They have the ambition. The empathy. All of those things that they’re able to influence the world in ways that we would like,” Bentley says in the story. “So when we see Mr. Incredible take a step back and say, ‘I’m going to take care of this kid and allow my wife to go off and pursue her career,’ if he can do it, anyone can do it.”

A playground play date between two of our Dallas Dad Group members and their children is also used to illustrate the link between being an at-home father and a superhero. Way to save the day, Adam Hill and Trevor Stamp:

“There’s no manual or guide on how to be a parent,” Gutierrez is quoted as saying. “I think [this group] has taught me a lot about myself, and I realized that I had to make a lot of changes. I was very much focused on my career because that’s what society expected me to do. Now, being more open with a community that has supportive fathers and environments like the City Dads’ network, I’ve been able to find other dads out there trying to do the same thing. It’s OK not to be so focused on my career. I can be balanced on my career and family and travels and make my life what I want it to be.”

Brock Lusch, co-organizer of our Cincinnati Dads Group, had the lead quote in the Refinery29 story and then took the spotlight in a local TV news interview to discuss what our social and support network does for fathers.

Brandon Billinger and Tucker Smith of the Kansas City Dads Group did a similar interview for one of their local TV news programs.

Finally, Darrell Humphrey of Charlotte Dads Group dispelled some of the common misconceptions about fathers caring for their kids as well as promoting his chapter in a one-on-one with a local TV news anchor.

Pediatric cancer is in the sights of City Dads Group this June as we team with the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) to raise money to help find a cure.

City Dads Group chapters in a dozen cities from coast-to-coast will set up stands between June 2 and 10 to sell lemonade and take donations to go to the national nonprofit’s work funding research to find better treatments and cures for childhood cancer.

Details, including times and locations for each group’s event this year, will be made available on the City Dads Group’s ALSF fundraising page or on the group’s Meetup page (see list below).

City Dads Group previously raised funds with Alex’s Lemonade Stand in 2016, but this year’s model should be even sweeter thanks to our ongoing partnership with Plum Organics. The nation’s leading organic baby food brand is helping our chapters out with supplies for their stands, and will provide snacks and samples for patrons.

• Boston – June 8
• Charlotte – June 4
• Chicago – June 9
• Dallas – June 9
• Fresno, Calif. – June 7
• Kansas City – June 2
• Los Angeles- June 10
• Madison, Wisc. – June 8
• New York City – June 5
• Portland, Ore. – June 9
• San Francisco – June 2
• Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul), Minn – June 2

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.

Houston dads, we no longer have a problem. You now have your own chapter of City Dads Group.

The national fatherhood support network recently added Texas’s largest (and the fourth largest in the United States) metropolitan area to its roster, which now lists 28 chapters.

The Houston chapter is the organization’s third in the Lone Star State following Dallas and Austin.

Manuel Gonzalez is the founder/organizer of the Houston Dads Group. The father of two active toddlers runs the website The Way I Dad: a predominantly visual resource for new parents that aims to provide the answers to parenting’s everyday questions. Gonzalez says his daytime work as a safety and environmental professional helps him provide a unique and thorough perspective on sustainable consensus and gentle parenting.

You can find the Houston Dads Group on these social media channels:

• Meetup (go here to join the group)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

City Dads Group is a dynamic and diverse community of fathers redefining, by example, what it means to be a dad in the 21st century. Our national support network has more than 8,100 members based in and around major metropolitan U.S. cities. These include Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas.

Founded in November 2008 in New York City as a way a handful of fathers could arrange playdates and outings with their children. The organization went national in 2014.

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.

City Dads Group will join the effort to raise awareness and funds to battle childhood cancers by setting up an Alex’s Lemonade Stand in six U.S. metropolitan areas the weekend of June 11-12, 2016.

Our fathers in Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City and Minneapolis-St. Paul will host the lemonade stands. All money raised will be donated to the Alex Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) for its work funding research to find better treatments and cures for childhood cancer. Details, including times and locations for each city, can be found on the City Dads Group’s ALSF fundraising page.

“This is a great opportunity for our members and their families across the country to come together for an excellent cause close to all of our hearts,” said Lance Somerfeld, co-founder of City Dads Group.

The stands are City Dads Group’s contribution to Alex’s Lemonade Days, a three-day national event. The event grew from an initial front yard lemonade stand set up in 2000 by Alexandra “Alex” Scott, a 4-year-old Pennsylvania girl with neuroblastoma. Her first stand raised $2,000 and received national attention.

Since Alex’s 2004 death, “Alex’s Lemonade Days” are held every year over the same June weekend with an estimated 10,000 volunteers hosting more than 2,000 Alex’s Lemonade Stands around the nation making a difference for children with cancer. This year’s Alex’s Lemonade Days are set for June 10, 11 and 12.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, a registered 501(c)3 charity, has raised more than $120 million to date toward fulfilling Alex’s dream of finding a cure, funding more than 550 pediatric cancer research projects nationally.

“City Dads Group is honored to partner with ALSF to shine a light on the need to fund pediatric cancer research,” said Matt Schneider, co-founder of City Dads Group.

For more information on Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, visit AlexsLemonade.org.

Welcome to Dallas Dads Group, we are glad you have found us. You can join us via our Meetup page.

I am a father of two young boys and we live in Waxahachie. My wife and I moved from Illinois in 2009 to the great state of Texas to be closer to family and find more affordable housing than we could find in Chicago. Due to our work schedules, we made the decision for me to stay at home with our children and take on the primary caretaker role. Months turned into years and one of my greatest difficulties was finding a place to take my boys to interact with other kids and I could find some adult conversation. Every dads’ group I found was inactive and the more I looked, the more I realized how few opportunities fathers have to spend solo time with their children while hanging out with other guys.

Think of it, children growing up thinking it was normal to be hanging out with not only their father, but having adventures among multiple involved fathers. That is why I started Dallas Dads Group. I believe that mothers and fathers are equally capable parents and it is time for fathers to find their own space within this mom-centric world of raising children. If you are still reading this, I would bet that you think that way, too. Dallas Dads Group is in the hands of its members. We will continue to set up Meetups and look for more opportunities to gain visibility with the ultimate goal of reaching more fathers, but any member can post a get-together on our calendar. We want fathers to be able to find other dads in their area and create memories with their children. We do not care what your life situation is, the only requirement to be a Dallas Dad is to be a guy who wants to spend time with his children and hang out with some other guys while doing it. Dallas Dads Group will be as great as we all make it. We do not want this to be another dads’ group that becomes inactive as soon as our kids get older. We want to build a foundation that fathers can use in a year, in five years, and in twenty years. Thanks for checking us out and I hope to meet you and your kiddos soon.

Check us out on social media:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DallasDadsGroup
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DallasDadsGroup
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/dallasdadsgroup

Not in the Dallas/Fort Worth area? Check out other chapters of City Dads Group around North America.

City Dads Groups across the country came together last night to get mad for March Madness. Dove Men+Care graciously sponsored events to let fathers get out of the house for the evening and into the start of the nation’s biggest college basketball tournament.

Here are reports and photos from our members:

“You really need to be a part of this.”

At one point I thought I’d have to pry the pizza slices and pint glasses from the hands of our dads to get them to “bring it in” for a group picture. The magnetism of the conversations taking place around the room was a strong draw; the appetizers, too enticing to forgo for a photo. But, eventually, they put their dad tales on pause, took a lasting sip of pale ale to tide them over and convened beneath the big screen TV to preserve the moment for posterity.

“Want me to take the photo?” asked a mom, seated with her family, a few tables away. I nodded in appreciation and she handed her son off to the man in the next chair and came for my camera, the throng of guys around me erupted in applause, laughter, good cheer.

“What is this,” she asked. “A softball team? A leadership conference? A book club?” She giggled.

“Dad’s Night Out!” came the collective shout and as I turned a second to take in the faces of pure joy around me – shoulders high in a posture of pride and organic, spontaneous high-fives. I saw big Mark, hair still damp from his after-softball-practice shower. I saw Andrew, still locked in conversation with the dad to his left, expounding the virtues of our group of active and involved fathers, taking the lead on the planning of our next Playground Playgroup outing. I saw authors, freelance writers, dad bloggers and avid book readers, alike.

“Yeah, something like that,” I told the mom with the camera. “A little bit of everything, really, with one fantastic common denominator.” And as she set the camera to autofocus and backed up a few steps to get us all in the frame, she motioned her own husband over, who, in turn, handed his son to the man to his left at their table.

“What’s up, hon?” he asked.

“Get in this photo,” she insisted, “You really need to be a part of this.” And then another ovation from the dads as our new friend found his place among us and his Mrs. finally got the shot.

— Mike Heenan, San Francisco Dads Group

March Madness party in the NYC

We had one of the more diverse groups in attendance in New York City. There were even several new members present. Folks enjoyed lots of tasty appetizers, indulged in equally tasty beverages, but most importantly, bonded while spending time watching college hoops. Some folks wore apparel representing their college affiliation while others discussed their favorite all-time college teams and players.

The evening’s pinnacle came when it felt like we were watching a tennis match, heads swiveling back and forth while we tried to view both the UNC/Harvard barnburner and the Cincinnati/Purdue overtime effort. That kind of watching took some #RealStrength

 — Christopher Persley, NYC Dads Group

Talkin’ brackets to the “terrible twos”

Surrounded by 42 screens at Shoeless Joe’s in the Rosemont suburb, our Chicago Dads Group enjoyed a night of food, drinks and camaraderie. From talking about their brackets to the “terrible twos,” the group had a nice evening just hanging out and being around other like-minded dads.

All the dads in attendance had their eyes on the games, too, as they hoped their favorite teams would advance to the next round. By the end of the night, you could tell by their faces that some dads were happy with the outcome while others were just hoping that their bracket would survive the madness.

Thanks to Dove Men+Care for their continued support of fathers and fatherhood, even when their brackets may not be doing well, for sponsoring a wonderful event like this March Madness Dads’ Night Out.

 — Victor Aragon, Chicago Dads Group

Swapping stories

On Thursday, 25 other dads and I in Chicago (and hundreds around the country) gathered together to drink beer, eat chicken wings, watch college basketball, and trade dad stories.

Not the ones where you haven’t seen your kid all week, and you missed the recital, and now you are going to fix it all with ice cream for dinner — I’m talking more like “how we found out that my son has Celiac’s disease, and why we cook three dinners a night to feed our family.” Or “which playgrounds in which order we are going to go to, once the weather gets warm.” And occasionally some B.K. (before kids) stories: backpacking in Syria, books we read when we had time to read books without pictures, etc. Oh yes, and we made the occasional dick joke.

I just moved to Chicago, so I didn’t know most of the guys, but it was a pleasure to get to know them in a casual style. In New York, where I was a member of the NYC Dads Group, these gatherings were in many ways a non-traditional water cooler at work where you take a minute to share the news of the day, chat about problems at work, and maybe figure out something that’s been bothering you.

— Adam Gertsacov, Chicago Dads Group

City Dads Group continues to grow its diverse community of fathers who want to be actively involved with their children by adding outposts in Dallas and Las Vegas — the organization’s 12th and 13th cities.

The Dallas Dads Group is headed by at-home fathers David Kepley and R.C. Liley. David, a father of two boys, blogs at Just a Dad 247. R.C., a former accountant with one daughter, is a health and fitness advocate who writes the blog Going Dad.

Find the Dallas Dads Group on:

• Meetup (go here to join)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

The Vegas Dads Group is being run by Kevin Zelenka and Ben Floyd. Kevin, known to his friends as “Spike,” started the Vegas Dads Group a year ago before bringing it into the City Dads fold. The at-home father of twin toddlers does freelance writing in addition to writing his blog Double Trouble Daddy. Ben, a father of one boy (with another child on the way), is a marketing executive who also contributes to several social media sites.

Find the Vegas Dads Group on:

• Meetup (go here to join)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

City Dads Group is a dynamic and diverse community of fathers dedicated to being active in their children’s lives and, by example, redefining what it means to be a dad in the 21st century. Founded in November 2008 in New York City as a way a handful of fathers could arrange playdates and outings with their children, the organization went national in 2014 with more than 2,500 members in 13 locations who bond over their children and a desire to change the face of modern fatherhood through word, deed, and example.