We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dianne Weed. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dianne below.

Dianne, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I was a 57 year old woman whose only job for the past 38 years had been to be a stay-at-home mom. My youngest daughter was just months away from high school when I came up with the idea of starting a non-profit that would inspire and encourage the foster care community by meeting their needs in a practical way. I didn’t know the first thing about what it would take to make this all happen. All I had was passion for what I wanted to do so I just moved forward and began to tell one person and then another. Four months later I opened the doors and began serving children. That first month I served eight kids.  We now serve over 400 kids each month.

I knew that there were kids that needed to be encouraged to rise above the circumstances that they were in, because of no fault of their own.  I believed that if people just knew how to help, they would.  I was right. Stepping out beyond my fears was one of the scariest things I had ever done but it has been so worth it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

The Twig is a nonprofit organization that serves only children in foster care. We have two boutique stores. One in Bradenton and one in Venice that provide a place where children from newborn to teens can shop each and every month that they are in foster care totally free of charge. Everything about a shopping experience at The Twig is there to help these children restore their self-esteem so they do not have to become another statistic. Statistics that would tell them that their future looks like homelessness, jail, sex trafficking, abuse, or suicide. What started off as a simple idea has now expanded to include many different programs that provide mentoring and encouragement to many different sectors of the foster community. In 2021 over 600,000 children passed through the foster care system in the United States. I believe that if we don’t do something to help these kids, then that number is only going to grow as the next generation is born. The Twig strives to let excellence be our guide because every child needs to know that they matter.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

When I started the Twig I wanted each child to feel as if they were receiving a gift. This helped set the bar not just on the quality of the items that we are giving but also on how they are given. Each child that comes to The Twig has multiple selections to choose from and large dressing rooms to help them find the perfect fit. After they have made their choices, everything is carefully folded and placed in a paper gift bag with tissue paper. We work together with many other agencies that also help foster families so we can all make sure that their needs are being met. On top of that, we use social media to help our donors and communities feel connected with what we are doing. These people give because they care and they like knowing that what they give is making a difference.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

We started our social media journey with my own personal Facebook page because it was what I had, and what I knew. I brought my Facebook friends on this Twig journey with me and soon they were sharing my story on their Facebook pages. Before long I realized The Twig needed its own Facebook page.  We created one and my followers immediately grew. I had some followers that were a part of a foster family private Facebook group and they asked me to join.  Before I knew it The Twig became known to the community I was hoping to help. Since then we have added Instagram and TikTok to widen our audience. My followers share our successes and by doing so they help us grow our numbers, not just in foster families we serve but also in donors. We now have a Facebook group just for our 150 active volunteers, one for the families we serve, and our original public page where we post things like our Wishlist Wednesday and our upcoming fundraising events, allowing our Facebook friends to see how they can provide for our immediate needs.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.TheTwigCares.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/TheTwigCares
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheTwigCares