The Gay Birthday Club

Okay. Hello. Hi, everyone. I'm just getting everything set up. Gotta get set up on Instagram. I have too many tabs open. This is a lot of tabs. Gotta close the tabs. Welcome. I hope you like my outfit or my accessories, I should say. Let me see. Want the comments. And then we need to go live on Instagram. Here we go. All right. Oh, wait. All right. Hi, everyone. Welcome to A Little Live. That's a little out of my normal routine. I am Katie McManus. Hi. I am the President and CEO of the Gay Birthday Club. This is my first time going live for the Gay Birthday Club, and we're going live on TikTok over here. We're on all of my personal channels, LinkedIn, the Facebook's, YouTube. We're on the Instagram for the Gay Birthday Club. Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. Hello, Nate. Welcome. So if you don't know what the Gay Birthday Club is, we are a 5 1c3 nonprofit, and the whole point of our. Of our mission is anyone in the LGBTQIA community who doesn't get a call from loved ones on their birthday can sign up with us. And we call you and we sing to you, and we make sure you know just how loved and celebrated you. You are. And a big part of what we are doing is honestly just, like, spreading joy. And I think it's so important right now to talk about joy and to celebrate people for exactly who they are, because with everything that's going on in the world, it's really, really easy to feel like there's just not much you can do. But we have to remember that joy is also resistance and that we have to spend time tending to the spirit. We can't just fight for survival at all. At every single point, we have to also celebrate the human spirit. Nate, thank you so much for the lives or for the likes. Thank you. Anyway, I am the president, CEO, the whole where we came from. This might be helpful for you to know. So in God, like, just over two years ago, I saw a message from someone I'm connected to on social media, and they were sharing that they no longer get from phone calls from their dad on their birthday since they came out as trans. And my response, because I am cringe, was, well, cool. Like, I'm not cool, but I call my friends on their birthdays and I sing and make sure that they know that they're celebrated and loved. I'd love to call you. And they were like, yeah, I bet I would love that. And so they sent me Their, their phone number and their birth date and their birthday had passed a couple days before. But that night I had dinner with my parents and I told them we have to call so and so. And my parents are so amazing. They were just like, cool, like, no question who this person is. They were just down. And so we called and we sang. And honestly, I didn't think anything of it. I just kind of thought, okay, cool, like, that's done. And the next day I'm going about my business and I get a message from them and they just said, you know, I've listened to this voicemail so many times because they didn't answer. And it meant so much to me. So thank you so much. And that really stuck in my mind of, you know, as something so small that we could do to celebrate people. Hi, kj. Hello. Welcome. And thank you again for the lives, guys, or for the likes. It's been a long week and a long day anyway, and so I called some friends who I knew would be aligned and who I trusted with this kind of a mission. And we've been working on it for over a year now and it's really, really exciting. We're currently working on a fundraising goal of 50,000 dol thousand dollars, which feels like a big amount of money. But we are at 2,500ish right now. And in this live, I'm actually going to be writing thank you cards. I got this really beautiful stationery from this printer who's an ally out of Brooklyn. And I just thought they were so pretty. And we got them customized so it says like the Gay Birthday Club, you can see. And I'm going to be sending everyone a thank you card who's donated so far with a little sticker of the Gay Birthday Club. That's our logo. And this is for Pope, for folks who have donated already. You know, and honestly, like, I had meant to do this before Christmas. I'm a little late. I am also really excited because I got the Betty White post its or. Yeah, post its or. I'm sorry, no stamps. Why am I saying post its? It's been a long week. I got Betty White stamps. Hi, Teresa, welcome. Hi, Philip, welcome. Hi, Jesse. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the Gay Birthday Club. If you know someone whose birthday is coming up, you should send this live. And if it's your birthday, then tell me and I will, I will burst into the song. I am not very talented musically, but I will happily sing you happy birthday. Hi, Lorenz. Welcome. You're welcome here. Hi. Welcome to the Gay Birthday Club. Everyone. And if you have any questions about us or what we're up to or, you know, if you just want to chat, then feel free to pop anything in the comments. The fun thing about what we do is when we call people, if they don't answer, we leave a voicemail. And so I always laugh at the idea that, like, people are having to listen to me and maybe they listen to my awful singing. When they're around people and they're like, oh, God. We had one of our members yesterday called someone who. Or maybe it was the day before, who obviously had some kind of impairment of hearing. And it was an interesting situation because she called and there was a. Like, a delay, and she said it was the most beautiful little conversation that she had because this person was so excited to get it. And, you know, she's able to give a birthday message. And so we really try to make this as accessible for everyone. And hi, if you're just joining, Happy Friday night, welcome. Hi, Holly Spoons, welcome. Please pop your. A little hello in the chat so I know that you're here and so I can say hello. I'm going to be writing some thank you cards for people who've been so generous to donate to the Gay Birthday Club. Again, we are at 2500 in donations. Ish. From people who've given checks and donated on our website. And our goal is $50,000. And we're so excited, once we hit that. That threshold, we will be able to open up our volunteer program. Program. Once we get everything built. Because that is the number one question we get from folks. Hi, Jess. Hi, Martin. Welcome. That's the number one question we get from folks. When I post on TikTok or Instagram, you know, people comment and say, how can I become a singer? You know, and if you're just joining us, welcome to the Gay Birthday club. I'm Katie McManus. The gay birthday club is a 501c3 nonprofit. And our whole thing is anyone, the LGBTQIA community who doesn't get a call from loved ones on their birthday can sign up with us. And we call you and we sing to you and we make sure that you know just how loved and celebrated you are. Um, I don't use these on calls, but I thought they were fun for the live today, so. Hi, vagab. Welcome. Um, and if you're just joining us, then please say hi in the comments. I'd love to see who's here because I can't see on other platforms except for TikTok. What's going on. But anyway, I'm gonna start writing my thank you cards. We got. Oh my God, we got our first thousand dollar donation from someone and I'm so friggin grateful. It is so incredible to see people believing in us and supporting us. Let's see. Hi, Salu, Welcome. Hi, Morbid Fox. Welcome. If you know anyone whose birthday is today, then be sure to send this live to them so that I can sing them happy Birthday live. Be a little fun. Anyway, and I'm just checking to make sure I. Oh, gosh, I think I made everything too small. Oh, goodness, what did I do? Okay, awesome. All right, I'm gonna stay on Streamyard and I'm going to stay on TikTok. And there we are. I absolutely love this. And there's still. There is still good in the world, you know, and this is the thing that we have to hold on to. We have to keep being the good that makes everyone keep hope. Right? You know that feeling when you're going about your day and someone just does something random that's nice for you? Like, they may. They might hold the door open for you, they might compliment your outfit. I don't know, like they. They might, like, give you a cart, like when you're looking for a cart at the grocery store. And. And that feeling of, oh, that's so nice. Like, that it gives you this buoyancy and it really helps kind of bounce, you know, with. With more energy and purpose through the rest of your day and spread that kind of energy. And honestly, like, we can't resist what's going on right now without really being purposeful in feeding that energy. And, you know, there are so many organizations that do such incredible work in this. In the space to support the LGBTQIA community, you know, and a lot of them are focused on incredibly important aspects of what the LGBTQI community has to fight for. And I'm talking about, like, basic human rights. And that is so important. And I want everyone who's watching, if you can go and support those organizations and. And we can't just fight for survival for the LGBTQI community. We have to fight for happiness. We have to fight for, like, the freedom to just be fully expressed in love just as you are. It's so important. Trust me. Welcome. Hi, Marcella. Hi, K. Welcome. If you have any questions about the gay birthday club, you feel free to put them in the comments. I'm just here writing thank you cards. I haven't actually started wr them yet because I'm so excited to do this first live And I'm gonna be. Oh, gosh. Sending these little stickers. Let's see. Thank you. Yes, we are. We are volunteer based. Yes. We have no employees because we honestly just have no money yet. We literally just got 5,501C3 status in May of this past year around my birthday, fittingly enough. And we have a board of directors who are all working board members. So we have our fundraising chair. We, Derek, we have. We have Ashley, who's our marketing chair. I kind of handle the social media stuff along with someone who helps me. We have our operations chair, who's Lauren. She's also the secretary. I'm president CEO. But that doesn't really feel real to me because it's just, you know, it's so small right now. Who else? We have John Rivera, who is in charge of our programing. Oh, this is so much fun. I'm going to get into that in a second. We also have Amanda Stern, who's in charge of our partnership. So if. If you know any nonprofits that are aligned to supporting the LGBTQ community or to birthdays in general, then please get in touch with us, because Amanda Stern is our partnership with chair, and she's looking for organizations that we can do some cross promotion with. We posted something today. The Orlando Gay Chorus did a beautiful collaboration with us. You can go and check it out on the profile on Instagram and on TikTok. They got their people together and they sang Happy Birthday, and it's just like, oh, my God. They're so generous with their time. They're so talented. So you can help that way. If you know any nonprofits, you can get us in touch with the one I'm really excited about. So Genre Vera out of San Francisco, he is heading up our programming. And so what we're going to be launching fairly soon. We're still getting it organized. Is anyone. So, you know, like, let's say in March. Your birthday's in March. What we're going to do is we're going to put all the names of the people whose birthdays are in March. We're going to pull one, and then we'll call them and say, hey, listen, we'd love to send you a gift. And we're taking gifts as donations from businesses and artisans who are allies and in the community, and we're going to be sending that person a little surprise gifty. And of course, after they get the present, because we want it to be a surprise, we don't want them to know what it is beforehand after the fact, then we'll be thanking the business owner in our newsletter and on our social media and it's going to be a lot of fun. But to answer the question, we are volunteer based and you know, one of the main questions we get from folks when they comment on our videos or we talk about it is how can I volunteer? Because everyone loves the idea of singing Happy Birthday to someone. Well, not everyone, but the best people in the world, they like calling people and singing Happy Birthday. Welcome, Catalina. Hello. Welcome. Yes, so. Okay, I have to. Okay, so first and foremost, I need to thank one of our monthly contributors who donates 15amonth and they have for a long time. So this is the weird part where I feel odd doing a live and not talking to you guys, but I can't talk and write at the same time or it's gonna get real weird. So, dear, Thank you you so much for your monthly donations. To the club. Hi, Gavin. Hi, Steph. Welcome. And if you want to join the Gay Birthday Club, you can go to www.gaybirthdayclub club.org and just scroll to the bottom of our main page and sign up. And on your birthday you will get a phone call from one of our people and I apologize in advance. We're not all great singers, but we will sing you Happy Birthday and hopefully it doesn't make you want to cry because we're bad singers. We really need to get some of the people from the gay, the Orlando Gay Chorus to join as volunteers. They are incredible, incredibly, incredibly talented. And of course, you know, while we are building out our volunteer program, a way you can help if you want to get involved is any donation, if you can afford to do so, would be so helpful. If you have any friends or family who you know, would love this mission and would love to get involved, please feel free to share our website with them. We would love to get in touch. John Johnson, welcome. Hello. Yeah, and if it's anyone's birthday again, let me know. I will sing Happy Birthday to you. And we're just doing our thank you cards. Hello. Welcome. Thank you for the likes. We're just doing our thank you cards and really any amount helps. We have someone who donates $15 a month because that's what they can afford and it really does make a massive difference to our monthly, you know, expense. Okay, Lovely. All right, so that is thank you card. One down. I only have like a gazillion more to go. Hi, Tam, Welcome. Hi, Tuxedo. Welcome. Yes, and if you are just joining us, hi, I'm Katie with the Gay Birthday Club. If you can't tell, we are celebrating. Anyone who is in the LGBTQIA community who doesn't get a call from loved ones on their birthday can sign up to get a phone call from us. And on that phone call, we do sing to you, and we do make sure you know that you're loved and celebrated, Nate. Okay, so if you want to volunteer, when we do launch our volunteer program, the best way to do it is to go to our website and sign up for our newsletter. Okay. Because we will be rolling our volunteer program out to people on our newsletter first. So please go and check that out. We also send a pretty fun newsletter out every couple weeks so that you don't forget who we are. You know, any hoodle. Let me just make sure there's no spelling. Thank you so much for your monthly donations to the club. We appreciate you so much. Love the Gay Birthday Club. Perfect. Okay. I gotta. Again, I'm obsessed. Betty White is an icon. I'm so excited that my post office had these stamps in. In stock because, like, I. I was hearing from so many people. I was talking about how I wanted these, and I was hearing from so many people saying that their post office was out of them because she's just so popular. Hi, Risky. Hi, Vicky. Hi, Jorge. Welcome. Welcome to the Gay Birthday club. Friends, if it's anyone's birthday, please let me know. I would love to sing you Happy Birthday. And it won't be embarrassing because no one will be able to see you blush. So anyway, I'm here just writing thank you cards. Oh, I forgot a sticker, what we're doing, because we just got these. We're so excited. This is our little logo because we just got these. These are kind of just a prototype. I'm sending them out to anyone who has donated. There we go. All right. And then I'm just gonna do their first name so I can go and address later. It's so weird writing this person's full first name because I know her with, like, an abbreviation, and it's very different. And I'm. I'm being obtuse about who donated because I don't want to, you know, share anyone's personal information, you know? Okay, so that's. Thank you, card number one. I think we have, like, 12 more to go. Oh, my God. This is the big one. We just. Oh, my God. Someone donated a thousand dollars to the Gay Birthday Club. When they said they were. They were committing that much, I died. I was like, are you. Are you serious? That is so huge. Thank you. Um, yeah, you know, and obviously we don't expect people to donate that much. It is, it is not the ask we're making. If you want to donate to the gay birthday club, you can. Any amount helps. $5, $10, $15. Everything helps us build out the platform that we need to be able to support people so that they can become volunteers and call folks on their birthday. And thank you again for the likes. And hi, it's Bray. And hi Vicki O. Welcome. And if you want to give us a follow, hi Stray Cat. And hi Miguel. And hi Rivky. Yeah, if you want to give us a follow, you know, we are trying to broaden our reach on social media. If you want to go follow us on Instagram or over on TikTok, that would be a huge, huge help to us getting the word out. So thank you for that. And if you're watching this, I can't see. Oh gosh. A friend just said that he recorded a video. Ah, I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna message him. I'm live right now. I'm live right now. You want see my reaction in real time? That's so funny, honey. You're me saying, oh my God, thank you. No. And you know, it's. It feels small. I. I will own that it feels small to do something like this. It feels like it's not the thing that's going to save the world. And also, not everything needs to be the thing that saves the world. Some things can just spark enough joy in the people who are actually going to go save the world to remind them that saving the world is worth it. Because I know right now there are some moments where I'm like, is it? Is it really? Okay, so my friend who messaged me saying that he recorded a video and asked if he's influencing. I asked him if I told him I'm live right now, do you want to see my reaction real time? And he said, haha, no, it's too embarrassing. So now I really, really, really want to see it. Oh my gosh. Okay, so back to writing. Thank you. Card number two. Okay. Dawn and Juvenile. Welcome. And again. And Bath Jar. I think Bath Jar. Welcome. Welcome to the gay birthday club. I'm glad my dog's not up here because she hates this thing. She hates it with a dying passion. Hi, Alan, Welcome. Hi, Luna. Oh, Luna, that's my dog's name. Welcome. Hi. Welcome to the gay birthday club, everyone. And let me just see. I'm gonna. Okay, so birthday card number two. Or. I'm sorry. Thank you. Card number two. To the person who donated a thousand dollars to our mission. Oh, God. Precious. On. Dear name. Thank you so much for your. Generous. I always get paranoid when I'm writing something because I'm so used to spell check. Hi, Sarah. Welcome. I'm so used to spell check that I'm like, oh, God, am I spelling this correctly? How do you spell generous? I know how to spell generous. It's fine. It's. It's spelled well, but, you know, just that moment of panic. Hi, Gary. Welcome. Hello. Yeah. And if you're watching and you want to say hi, please do. For some reason, I haven't used Streamyard in a while, and they've had some updates, like a different interface anyway. But, yeah, we are the gay birthday club. Five one C3 nonprofit. And our whole thing is, anyone, the LGBTQI community who doesn't get a call from loved ones on their birthday can sign up with us. And we call you and we sing to you, and we make sure that you know just how loved and celebrated you are, because you deserve it. And again, it is so important that we spend time on acts of joy like this in this time, because it is very easy to start losing some hope when you look out in the world. And it's little moments like this, like being celebrated on your birthday, that really does make a difference. I'm just gonna say hi. Hi, Constellation. Welcome. Thank you for joining. Let's see. Okay, so thank you so much for your generous gift to support. The club. To have. Okay. Okay. Beautiful. All right, one new message. Hi. Hold on. Oh, thank you. Hi, Shelly. Welcome. Okay, let's see. See? All right, so I have the thank you card. Put it in the thing in the envelope. That's what it's called. All right. And we gotta put a sticker in. All right. And then I'm just gonna do the name. Okie dokie. And then the Betty White stamp. The most. The. The most regal stamp that possibly exists anywhere. I miss her. She was such just a bundle of joy. Like, she's just so beautifully snarky, too. Like, just. What a queen. Let me see. Okay, so we have two thank you notes done out of God knows how many. And again, this is the Gay Birthday Club. Hi, Vicky. Hi, Lucas. The Gay Birthday Club. Our whole thing is anyone in the LGBTQIA community who doesn't get a call from loved ones on their birthday can sign up with us. And we call them and we sing to them, and we make sure that they know just how loved and Celebrated. They are. Thank you so much for the likes. And our big goal right now is to raise $50,000, which feels like a lot. We are two, five hundred dollars, you know, in to that goal. And I'm writing thank you cards to everyone who has been so generous to donate so far. And if you want to see, they're just so cute. I had them. I had them custom made by someone who is an ally and a printer out of Brooklyn, New York. Okay, so we have. Okay. Another monthly contributor who. Again, I. I actually, this is someone who I think is one of our followers on TikTok. Because I don't. I don't recognize the name as it's written as someone that I actually know. Which it. It blows me away. I mean, you know, when you're raising money and you ask your friends to donate, that's one thing, but it means a lot when it's just someone who supports the mission. Hi, Lucas. Hi, Michael. Hi, Paris time and again. Hi, Vicky. Oh, yeah. And if you. If you are in the LGBTQI community and you want a birthday call on your birthday, then please do go to our website, gaybirthdayclub.org and scroll all the way to the bottom and sign up. We will call you and sing to you on your birthday. Hi, Barbie, welcome. Hi, Sam, Welcome. And I'm just getting busy writing some thank you notes. And this is our third one. All right, let's see. Dear, thank you so much you so much for your monthly gift. To the club. Wouldn't. Without. Okay, okay. Dear name. I'm not sharing anyone's name. Thank you so much for your monthly gift to the club. We wouldn't be able to do this without your support, which is so true. I always feel funny writing thank you cards to people because I feel like every single thank you card has to say something different. I know that a point we will get big enough that I won't be able to do that. It's just gonna be, you know, the script that gets rewritten and rewritten and rewritten. But, you know, for right now, everyone is getting a slightly different message because I feel like that makes it more special. Even though no one knows what the other people are getting on their thank you cards. It's just a mental thing in my head. Okay. So I'm gonna put their name and I will address later. Okay. Three down. Okay. The next one is my dad. I'm gonna. I'm gonna hold off on that. I'm gonna. I'll write him his thank you card and hand it to him if he wants a Betty White stamp, then I can give it to him. But, you know, I'm gonna see them shortly, so. Okay, the next one. Oh, someone gave 150 before the end of the year. Hi, Roz. Welcome. Thank you guys so much for joining. And again, if you're just joining us now, welcome to the Gay Birthday Club. If you want to follow us on the social medias, it's Gay Birthday Club on Tick Tock and on Instagram. And our whole thing is anyone in the LGBTQIA community who doesn't get a call from loved ones on their birthday can sign up with us for free. And we call them and we sing to them and make. We make sure that they know just how loved and celebrated they are. It sounds silly and small, but I think it's so important right now to, you know, really focus on the moments of joy. And if it's your birthday or if it's someone's birthday, like, let me know. I will sing in this live. Okay. As I grow this account, especially on Tick Tock. As I grow it more and more, I can see there being a where I'm just gonna be sitting here singing at you guys. And I apologize in advance, I am not a good singer. But yeah, if. If it's your birthday, I will want to sing to you. Hi, Moolah. Welcome. Hi. And hi, Edward. That's my dad's name. It's a good name. Okay, so, dear. Thank you, guys. I'm really glad I did this as a live, because I was. I always procrastinate on this stuff just because it feels like it needs to be really perfect and like, it's just writing thank you cards. It's not that. It's not that stressful. Okay. Thank you so much for your generous donation and support. Hi, Angel. Hi, Max. Hi, Vivin Wits Tease. Hello. Oh, my God. Okay, so there was. Oh, my God. There have been a couple times where I've been doing lives for my business, not for the Gay Birthday Club. And, like, someone has, like, a username that doesn't look like anything when you read when you see it, but then you. You read it out loud and it's something completely inappropriate. Hi, Pammy. Hi. Wake up. Hi, Marie. Hi, David. I like to greet everyone as they come in and join us. And I read that out loud and I just turned beet red. I was mortified that I said that, but it was their. Their username, so. Oh, like, what are you gonna do? Hi, Diamond. Hi, Nebraska. Welcome. Okay. All right, we have. Hi, K Hog. Welcome. We have a thank you card number four. We are cruising. Guys, thank you for holding me accountable here. Really appreciate it. And like I said, if it's anyone's birthday, I will sing to you. That's a threat and a promise. So, okay, let me put the name on the. On the envelope, And then we have our Betty White stamps. I. I'm gonna be excited for these forever. I'm gonna be really sad when they discontinue them. Okay. I'm not going to share the name, but this is what they're going to see. They're going to get a good old Betty White envelope in their. In their inbox. Hi, Ankh. Welcome. Hi, Rodney. Welcome. Welcome to the Gay Birthday club, Friends. Okay, so again, that's our monthly. Okay. We have two of our board members. Ooh. And then. Oh, my God. I. A former client just came out of the woodwork and donated as well, which is so sweet of her. Hi, George. Welcome. All right, I'm gonna wind this down on the other platforms, and I'm just gonna be on Tick Tock. So if you want to come over to Tick Tock and hang out with me there. I feel like this format of live works better on Tick Tock than it does on other places because a little repetitive, and that's kind of the Tick Tock way. So if you're watching on other platforms, come and join me on Tick Tock. I'm going to end the stream on the other ones, but I'm staying here with you guys. Okay. Thank you for being with me. Have a good night.