A gift for your ‘birthday twin’
Father-daughter duo would like you to re-gift for underprivileged children
It’s often in elementary school that you find your “birthday twin.”
They aren’t related to you in any way except one: you share the same date of birth. At school you celebrate together; the class sings, you pretend to blow out candles. Maybe you get first dibs on the bouncy balls at recess.
When birthday twins separate and go home, that’s where celebrations might diverge. For you, maybe the candles and songs continue at the dinner table between gift-wrapped dolls and water guns. Or maybe for you or your birthday twin, they don’t. Maybe at home, there’s a song, but no candles, no gift-wrapped anything.
That’s where Riverdale fatherdaughter duo Donny and Mia Mangos want to step in. The real-estate broker and his 5-year-old daughter have launched The Birthday Project, an initiative aimed at bringing regifted toys to underprivileged kids on behalf of their “birthday twin.”
“We’re firm believers in that giving feels a lot better than getting,” says dad Mangos, who credits Mia for sparking the idea after her fifth birthday party. “There were gifts everywhere,” he remembers. Mia had opened presents from friends and family, and thought, ‘I bet there are other 5-year-olds who also have the same birthday as me, but don’t have any presents to open.’
Afact that drives Mangos and Mia’s project, pulled from an October Toronto Star report, is that some 28.6 per cent of kids live in low-income households in Toronto, making it the “child poverty capital of Canada.”
Laurette Jack-Obgonna has seen it first-hand at Riverdale’s Eastview Neighbourhood Community Centre, where she is co-ordinator of the children’s program. “A good majority of our kids don’t get a lot on their birthday. Or they just get what’s considered staples, or needs,” says JackObgonna, who leads a partnership with Mangos for the Birthday Project.
Many of the families Eastview serves are only able to provide their kids with essentials: from winter coats to running shoes. The Birthday Project is about “toys instead of necessities,” she says over the phone, telling the Star of the first gift East- view has received via Mangos: a toy picnic set from a 2-year-old girl in the neighbourhood.
How it works: Gift givers connect with Mangos on his website, BirthdayProject.ca, and drop off wrapped toys at participating centres and other drop-off locations, which include the Shmooz café on Pape Ave. and Mangos’ own realtor office on King St. W.
The givers include a prepared questionnaire provided by Mangos on the gift inside. If the giver includes their return address, they may receive a “thank you” card in the mail.
“It’s such a wondering thing,” says Jack-Obgonna, noting one birthday when her own daughter received the same item from three different people. “It’s a purposeful way of re-gifting.”
Mangos has teamed with two locations so far: Eastview and Leslieville’s Red Door Family Shelter.
It was a family member’s time in a shelter that inspired Rebecca Mountain, a Burlington mother of four, to volunteer with the Birthday Project’s online operations. One of Mountain’s sisters lived in a shelter to “get back on her feet” after she was abused.
“(The Birthday Project) was very near and dear to my heart in terms of what it’s like there and how it’s really hard to get out of that cycle. Just the smallest thing can mean so much to people,” she says. Both Mountain and Mangos hope the Birthday Project encourages their kids to grow up with a compassionate spirit. It’s their latest effort in answering the question: How do we get kids to understand that it’s important to give?
“We’ve been looking for a long time to find a way to get Mia involved in a generous capacity,” says Mangos. Last Christmas, they cooked batches of pasta, loaded them in plastic storage containers and handed them out to people on the street. This year, it’s about matching up “birthday twins” across the city.
“She gets (it), no doubt. But she hasn’t really seen what we’ve seen; not everybody has everything they need.”
“We’re firm believers in that giving feels a lot better than getting.” DONNY MANGOS THE BIRTHDAY PROJECT