Memories are Made of This How One Creative Mom Turned a Beautiful Tribute into a Blossoming Nonprofit
On their way to the daisy-dotted archways, lush bonsai displays, and towering floral sculptures that have made the Philadelphia Flower Show a cultural mainstay since 1829, streams of locals and tourists funneling down the Convention Center hall suddenly stop to visit a row of long tables covered with technicolor Sharpies and paper clouds. Jennifer Burke steps out from the group in her teddybear-embellished apron and cheerily announces, We re asking everybody that comes through the flower show if they d stop and write a warm word of cheer for children with cancer. Jen is the founder of Sara s Smiles, a nonprofit organization that brings encouragement and support to children with cancer across the country. With a mission inspired by her own heart-breaking yet hope-filled experience, Jen seeks to enable every child who s battling cancer to receive the same love and support that her five year-old daughter Sara did when she was diagnosed with medulloblastoma in July 2007.
This is all based on my experience with my daughter, Jen explains. We lived in the hospital for 7 months, so we were physically isolated from everybody. We would plaster her walls with messages of love from everyone we knew. Her preschool class sent a giant poster with all of their handprints. So many people drew pictures and sent them, and we just hung it all up, as much as we could. Not a day went by when my daughter didn t feel connected to everyone. But it s a hard thing to pull off, you know? Through arts and crafts, guided imagery tours, and clever games using what was available at the hospital, Jen reinterpreted Sara s cancer treatment into an experience that encompassed imagination, creativity, and joy. She had a walker, and she would hang this little toy cell phone on it and put her shades on. She was a little rockstar, because she knew how much she was loved, Jen says. When Sara was in remission, the nurses were overjoyed and said, You have to throw a big party to celebrate when you get home! And to that, sweet doe-eyed Sara replied excitedly, And a fundraiser!
Tragically, Sara lost her courageous and inspirational battle with cancer in May 2008. And true to Sara s wish of celebrating her life with a fundraiser, Jen founded Sara s Smiles in honor of her beautiful little rock star, her darling daughter. Jen explains that Sara s Smiles is all about recreating the loving, happy, and supportive experience she gave Sara during treatment for other children who may not have that same support system readily available. When children are admitted to the oncology floor, they receive an Inspiration Kit. Inspiration Kits are filled with things for them to do in their room: decorate their walls, manage their pain and stress, and help them stay organized and discover resources that can help them. As for those long tables at the flower show where people stop to jot notes, the cloud-shaped papers the attendees created are rounded up and placed in every Inspiration Kit. It s a feel-good on both ends, Jen says. The goal is to bring cheer and provide a more comfortable, more personal, more empowered environment to the children, but it s also great watching people think about what they re writing and putting good energy into what they re doing.
From her loyal and ever-expanding group of volunteers to her artfully arranged sets of flower-appliqued markers, it s apparent that Jen s a mom on a mission. But make no mistake - this mom s created an amount of buzz around her organization that even seasoned business professionals would admire. I m not a business-minded person, Jen admits. I used to teach. I m creative. I m a people-person. I like to connect with people. So the whole business aspect of things that came along with growing Sara s Smiles was unfamiliar to me. As more and more donations rolled in and the demand for Inspiration Kits grew, Jen knew that there was no way she could manage everything alone. That s when she decided to purchase DonorPerfect Fundraising Software. We got DonorPerfect at a time when we were ready to grow. I didn t want to burn bright and burn out, I wanted to be a lasting solid foundation. DonorPerfect supports that goal, Jen says. Before DonorPerfect, I kept notes on scraps of paper and stored information on my computer, but that process certainly didn t keep me organized the way DonorPerfect does. We use it daily to keep track of our donors, the hospitals we donate to, and people who have Inspiration Stations. In addition to staying in touch with all the contacts that make Sara s Smiles possible, Jen uses DonorPerfect s mobile app, DPMobile, to process donations at fundraising events, including the Philadelphia Flower Show.
It s great! She says. I used to use another device. After an event, I d have to go back and log all the donor and donation information into DonorPerfect one by one. It took a lot of time. With DPMobile Swipe, I just swipe the credit card and they re in my DonorPerfect system automatically. Even the receipts are emailed automatically! Looking ahead, Jen is confident that Sara s Smiles will keep expanding to work with more and more hospitals in the coming year. She s revamping saras-smiles.org to grow its robust resource page that acts as a one-stop shop for games, guided imagery tours, and organizations that are specifically set up to support children with cancer and the families who love them. To make even more time for her mission, this momturned-nonprofit-pro took advantage of DonorPerfect s training so she could use the software to its fullest capacity. During part of her session, Jen learned how to automatically send personalized thank you notes to her donors the moment she receives a donation using DonorPerfect s Insta-Merge feature. I found DonorPerfect at the perfect time for us to grow together, Jen says. DonorPerfect makes everything easier. Whenever I call for help, everyone s warm and nothing s too stupid for me to ask. It means so much that I m talking to somebody who cares. I know I m in good hands with DonorPerfect s team.
As she walks back toward her booth, Jen greets her latest group of volunteers overseeing people writing notes to lift the cloud for a child with cancer. Before she disappears into the flurry of flower show goers, Jen takes a moment and reflects upon the impact of her lasting tribute. Now that I don t have my daughter, I look back on days when we had so much fun and joy, and she was happy and knew that she was loved. Believe me, there s a lot of horror. But any moment there wasn t, we were having fun. I have that at least. If I waited for her to get better to start with all that, where would I be? There s never a reason to not have hope. I love to give people a little bit of something to hold onto. It s so important - no matter what the outcome. For more information on DonorPerfect s fundraising software, visit www.donorperfect.com or call 800-220-8111.