Events
Come Join Us
- News Flashes and Matching Drives 2021-2022
- Prior Caravans / National Drives
- Current Caravan / National Drive / Indiegogo
- Future Caravans / National Drives - Why?
News Flashes
Occasionally, notes, announcements, and Out of Office Events / Experiences [OOEs] will be posted here.
MATCHING DRIVES 2023-2024
A group of generous donors will match your donations up to $3800 through Giving Tuesday, the Christmas Holiday Season, and Mothers' Month of May (dates below). Easily double your impact during The Drives until match funds are met, which means $10 becomes $20, $100 becomes $200, or whatever you contribute will be doubled and worth twice as much ... up to the above amount.
Our Matching Drive on Giving Tuesday occurs on November 28, 2023, the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving - the greatest day of giving globally - and the most special day of the year celebrating the work of nonprofits.
Our Christmas Holiday Season Matching Drive runs from November 1, 2023 - January 31, 2024.
Our Mothers' Month of May Matching Campaign runs from May 1 - May 31, 2024.
Helping Our Families: To our donors responding to the plight of our families and lightening their way: your compassion supports those affected by custody, visitation, and move away issues, domestic violence, inadequate or absent child support, the inability to afford counsel, and other hardships, legal expenses, and results stemming from the inherent difficulties, complications, and outcomes in the courts of family law. You lift awareness for these voiceless families, honoring those who, having lost custody, seek to regain contact with their children, as well as those mothers
safely relocating with their children. Making the Holidays and Christmas Season merrier and Mother’s Day more cheerful, your gifts cover legal expenses for qualified mothers who must defend custody and visitation of their children in courts, and help those who
can no longer provide the common necessities of life for their families due to the cost of defending the custody or
visitation of their children.
We are excited to share our Matching Drives with you and to watch the benefits of your compassion and generosity extend to our families. We hope you will share the Matching Drives with friends, family, and co-workers – wherever it will increase good and benefit our families.
The PayPal Giving Fund: When donating online, our The Custody Project / PayPal Giving Fund Donate Button on our home page will pass 100% of your donations to us from $1 up, as processsing fees are not charged. Whether you donate online through our site's Donate Now buttons or on their sites, including Network for Good, PayPal, Guidestar, PPGF, or by text, email, or check, we will match your Drive Donations based on the date of the check or online submission, doubling your impact up to $3800.
Current Matches and Updates: Please share our Matching Drives Flyer, Annual Newsletter, and updates wherever it will increase good and assist our families.
Results: All Giving Tuesday, Christmas Holiday Season, and Mother's Month of May Donations in 2022-2023 were matched. To those who contributed to these important Drives to help mothers and their children, thank you for helping our families!
Facebook Donors: To our Causes and Facebook (FB) donors, thank you for supporting our mission, helping our families, and sharing our work. Facebook donations come to us via The PayPal Giving Fund (PPGF); it will send donors their tax receipts, but donor information will come to us as anonymous. Call to share contact and donation information directly with us, to receive our receipt and/or to be on our mailing list (850 682 3460). And, please share this with all your friends, especially if you and your friends donate to us through FB and need receipts.
Sponsors: To contribute to the match pool of these or future Drives, contact us @ 850 682 3460. New updates and increases will post in this Matching Drives section.
NATIONAL DRIVE 2016-2017. The National Drive to lift awareness for mothers and their children began during December 2016 and concluded in January, 2017. Some information is below.
The Custody Project was featured in the Giving section on Kelly Rutherford's site (May 2013) but the link is no longer active.
A brief speech was given in support of The Custody Project and its Caravan Project before The Ladies of the Church of the Epiphany Episcopal Church (May 2013).
Our Lady of Victory gave a shout-out, encouraging donations to our Caravan Project on their site, too (May 20 and 27th 2012).
Prior Caravans / National Drives
Summer 2008 Caravan. Our long-time friends will remember that in the Summer of 2008, a nationwide Drive occurred to honor mothers relocating with their children and those affected by custody, visitation, and move away issues, to bring attention and support to their plight. Beginning at the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco, the drive ended east of Washington D.C., at the Atlantic Ocean. You can read about the Drive and view the route below, or read about those portions of the drive not archived and still posted on Facebook by logging in and typing tcp or tcp caravan in the search box.
For a discussion of perils these mothers and children often face, please click here.
Summer 2008 Caravan: Route
View Larger Map
Current Caravan / national Drive / Indiegogo
Our first Indiegogo Campaign ran to raise awareness for mothers and their children and to support The 2016-2017 National Drive. Our second, The National Drive and Traveling Art Exhibit Campaign on Indiegogo ran to raise awareness for them by requesting donations for art work and visuals to depict some of what our families go through. Documenting Their Voices: The Drive for The Voiceless is running on Generosity to raise funds for a documentary for our mothers and children (Plans for a documentary are on hold until sufficient donations are raised). Please share with your friends, families, and co-workers, as our families need your help.
You can read a synopsis in the Summer Caravan / National Drive section below as information is posted here or in that Section when a Drive is being planned or is in progress. See Future Caravans - Why? for some of the reasons for a Drive.
Future Caravans / National Drives - Why?
We want to conduct nationwide drives to raise funds for our mothers and children, to raise awareness regarding the difficulties these families face, to bring attention and support to the plight of those relocating with their children and those affected by custody, visitation, and move away issues, to celebrate successful move away orders, to celebrate with families now able to improve the quality of life for their families through good court orders, and to honor them.
The Drive is run in recognition of the financial challenges and difficulties often faced under current laws when families address domestic violence, abuse, legal attempts to remove custody, legal restraints preventing mothers from improving the quality of life for their families, and absent or inadequate child support. It is run to acknowledge and honor all mothers who have interacted with the courts, and those impacted by the legal system. We honor the mothers who struggle, the mothers and children who suffer, those abused, molested, tortured, and deceased, those mothers imprisoned in their attempts to protect their children, those refused move away orders and prevented from moving, those having lost custody, those with visitation rights, those who have custody, and those granted court orders to move. For further expression and discussion of some of the difficulties these families face, and the impetus for the Drive, please visit Mothers in Peril.
Summer Caravan / National Drive / Indiegogo
Summer Caravan / National Drive. The Custody Project's donors raised funds for our 2016-2017 National Drive to demonstrate support for the plight of those affected by custody, visitation, and move away issues, to honor mothers relocating with their children, and to lift awareness for these voiceless families. Some filming and traveling announcements made possible along the way through the generosity of our donors are listed in The Itinerary. Until the date of the next Drive is announced, please now give generously to our families, who are in such immediate need, by using our Donate: Online / Mail Options. However, if you would like to donate towards Visuals and the Documentary to depict some of what these families experience, please specify your donations are for these reasons and make checks payable to The Custody Project, or use our Donate: Online / Mail Options, or our Donate Now Buttons, or donate through Generosity by Indiegogo's link, Documenting Their Voices: The Drive for The Voiceless. (See next paragraph).
Indiegogo: The Drive for The Voiceless. We continue to raise funds for Visuals, including for photographs, writings, and a short documentary to visually depict some of the difficulties these families experience. You can help by sharing our goals with family and friends, spreading the word, and giving as you can on Generosity by Indieogo's Documenting Their Voices: The Drive for The Voiceless, or by indicating that your donations are for The Visuals and/or Documentary and sending checks, or donating on our website (see paragraph above). Although the original Indiegogo Drive for The Voiceless Campaign and The Drive For The Voiceless: Our Traveling Art Exhibit are now closed, to donate artistic items, please contact Donna @ 850.682.3460.
Volunteers
Our current route requires one driver and volunteers to assist with updates, factual and statistical data checking, sponsor and media contacts, fundraising, speaking engagements, events, grassroots support, mapping, and legal issues. If you would like to help, please contact us and see our Wish List.
Mothers
If you would like to speak and share your stories during engagements on a Drive, or accompany us on portions of the Drive[s], especially if you are relocating with your children due to beneficent court orders, please contact us. (See Supporters, below, for additional information).
The only group actively discouraged from doing so are mothers with active cases before the courts.
Supporters
If you would like to accompany us on portions of the Drive[s] to champion mothers and their children, their difficulties, and the perils these families frequently face, please watch this page for updates. If you cannot join us but would like to volunteer or donate as we pass through your section of the country, thank you. Please contact us.
Mothers, families, friends, neighbors, coworkers, relatives, women's groups, businesses, corporations, nonprofits, service organizations, coalition representatives, and others who are concerned and care about these issues are welcome to join or support our Drives. The only group actively discouraged from participating are mothers with active cases before the courts. Those mothers recently granted court orders and moving are welcome to Drive with us for any part of the journey coincident. In acknowledging the challenges these families face and celebrating with mothers who successfully obtain good court orders, especially move away orders, we also celebrate the wonderful laws which are assisting mothers and children every day, the attorneys who crafted them, and the judges who enforce them because these laws, and these people, are saving lives.
Charitable Donations
Our 2016-2017 National Drive recently concluded. Until the date of the next Drive is announced, please give generously to our families, who are in such immediate need. Please use our Donate Now Buttons and checks make payable to The Custody Project.
When a Drive date is set, you will be able to donate to The (Next) Drive. However, to help with the Visuals and Documentary now, you can specify this and give through our Donate: Online / Mail Options or donate through Documenting Their Voices: The Drive for The Voiceless as the Drive for The Voiceless Campaign and The Drive For The Voiceless: Our Traveling Art Exhibit are now closed. To make instant donations in support directly to TCP, please use our Donate Now Buttons and checks make payable to The Custody Project; in the memo line, write For The Visuals, and/or The Documentary.
Private Sponsorships
Private sponsorships and financial gifts are not tax-deductible but permit us to swiftly set funds aside for Drive expenses. Once a new Drive date is set, to sponsor our driver privately [not tax-deductible], contact us. You can also designate that your private gifts are for program and administrative Drive expenses, and send c/o The Custody Project. As we anticipate a National Drive will generate far more donations for our mothers and their families, your gifts can be a big help. The Board will oversee both tax-deductible donations and non-deductible gifts, and ensure they are used to fully benefit the goals of The Custody Project. Please visit our You Can Help: Services: Wish List and Events: Come Join Us: Caravans, too.
National Drive: Itinerary
Dates: December 2016 - January 2017.
Times: Day and evening as needed.
Starting Point: From Florida
Ending Point: To Florida
Itinerary: From Florida, West to California, East towards Washington D.C., South towards Atlanta and Florida. Engagements and appointments include in cities near Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Atlanta, with more information to follow.
Film interview regarding The National Drive For The Voiceless and its purpose, Los Angeles area, December 2016.
Film interview regarding The National Drive For The Voiceless and its purpose, with Tammi Stefano, The National Safe Child Show, Tammi Stefano, Los Angeles area, December 2016.
Find clips below on YouTube, also.
Film Announcement regarding The National Drive For The Voiceless and The Custody Project, Los Angeles area, December 2016, photography credits: Joe Messany and Paul Hunter. (YouTube)
Film announcement regarding The National Drive For The Voiceless and its purpose, with Melissa Barnett, Mothers of Lost Children, San Francisco area, December 2016.
Film Interview regarding The National Drive For The Voiceless and its purpose, with Bonnie Roy, Minnesota Protective Parents Association (MNPPA), Minneapolis area, December 2016. (YouTube).
The National Drive For The Voiceless, Film Announcement, at Bahai Temple, Wilmette, Illinois. December 2016. (YouTube).
The National Drive For The Voiceless, Film Announcement. Chicago, Illinois. December 2016. (YouTube).
The National Drive For The Voiceless: Factors Mothers Face, The Capitol, Washington D.C. December 2016. (YouTube).
The National Drive For The Voiceless, Film Announcement, The Capitol, Washington D.C. December 2016. (YouTube). Partial clip.
The National Drive For The Voiceless: Factors Mothers Face, The Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. December 2016. (YouTube).
The National Drive For The Voiceless: Factors Mothers Face, The Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. December 2016. Better audio for the clip above. (YouTube).
The National Drive For The Voiceless, Film Interview, The Carolinas, January 2017. (YouTube).
The National Drive For The Voiceless, Film Interview, Georgia, January 2017. (YouTube).
Additional information will follow as it is received.
Summer Caravan / National Drive: Route
Starting Point: TBA with a placeholder shown below, will soon be posted.
Ending Point: TBA with a placeholder shown below, will soon be posted.
The Route shown above for the 2008 Drive will be updated to reflect the one for the National Drive in 2016 as soon as possible.
Summer Caravan / National Drive: Pictures / film clips
Pictures, Film Clips, and Announcements: will soon be posted.