Service Sweet 16

Of all the milestones I was dreading would come for my kids, sixteen was a big one. And she hit it! But her sweet 16 was anything but ordinary. This year in lieu of lot’s of gifts, she chose to do a service sweet 16. Read on to see how we put this incredibly simple sweet 16 birthday party together.

THE PROJECTS:

The idea for a service sweet 16 came about because she was pretty depressed about her Dad not being there for her birthday this year. She had been struggling a lot, and decided instead of being depressed, she wanted to serve. So the idea of a service sweet 16 was born about two days before her birthday. Once we had the idea, it was time to implement an action plan.

My daughter was really wanting to go out and do some sort of service on her birthday, but she kind of didn’t give me enough notice to book something with an organization, although I spent a lot of time looking for places the whole family and friends could come participate. With the holidays, most places around here are turning away volunteers so I opted to do a project that was a little easier.

I had a few projects that were laying around the house so I opted to go with the gift of money, time and material goods. Once we got the ideas, we went to Instagram and Facebook to put our ideas to work and spread the news with the short notice.

Money:We have a lot of sweet people in our life who are unable to help bring donations over physically or live too far away so we asked that anyone that wanted to give a donation give it to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation where there is a memorial fund set up in her Dad’s name. We were FLOORED when one of her friends a few minutes after seeing the post donated $50! What a HUGE gift from a high school student. It definetely brought tears to our eyes.

juvenile diabetes research foundation
Time: Those who may not have had anything to donate but just wanted to come over and visit were welcome to come over and help make placemats for Meals on Wheels. Each placemat had a handmade note on it. These were leftover from a project I did with my social skills groups last Christmas.

meals on wheels placemat
Each placemat made also included an ornament and a candy cane so each person getting a delivery also got a little bit of the holidays delivered too.

Material Goods: Those who wanted to could bring over a bag of clothing, shoes or books to give to Tabitha’s Way. We had a large number of donations on her birthday, and people have continued to bring us clothing donations which has been GREAT! We love having her birthday last more than just a day.

DECOR:

With her sweet 16 falling close to the holidays, we kept the decor simple, low key and Christmas themed. My bench I’m waiting for parts on before I move it to the front door as a shoe and jacket holder served as storage for her few gifts I did get her and a place to hold all the donations people brought in.

FOOD:

Those that brought donations were given cake! I also went very simple on the decor for this one and made sure that it was very traditional.

I LOVE this tobaggon sled I found at Target. My daughter played with it and broke it, so we opted to use it as a plate and napkin holder.

I had to leave for a little while and when I got back, someone had made sure she labeled all the cakes.

Gluten free, dairy free peppermint chocolate cake:

Eggnog white chocolate cake:

Funfetti cake:

Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake:

Chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting:

Together it was beautiful and the visitors that came loved it.

WHAT WE LOVED: We loved that people were able to come inside, drop off their donations and visit. It was nice and low key that way. We also had a large number of people who came to share in her day from 80 year olds to 12 year olds. We loved that they got to come over and visit and share in her day. We noticed that the older group would come and visit in the living room together and the teenagers hung out in the kitchen by the food working on the placemats and chatting.

• What People Ate

  Cake

• What People Drank

  Milk and hot cocoa

• Desserts

  Gluten free, dairy free peppermint cake Triple chocolate chunk cake White chocolate eggnog cake Funfetti cake Chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting

• Activities / Games

  Meals on Wheels placemat making