Leadership W-B project committee ‘Fostering Magic’ for Unicornucopia

WILKES-BARRE — Fostering Magic, a project committee of Leadership Wilkes-Barre, is working to raise awareness of Unicornucopia and its mission.

Unicornucopia is a nonprofit organization that uses donated funds and goods to provide holiday and birthday gifts to children in foster care group homes. Each child receives an outfit, socks, underwear, hygiene products and personalized gifts chosen from their wish lists.

The committee will be using money raised from an upcoming fundraiser to create a new website for the organization, along with a promotional video. In addition, they’ll be working with the foster group homes to organize a fun day out for the children served by Unicornucopia.

Fostering Magic will host a fundraiser from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at Senunas’ Bar and Grill, 133 North Main St., Wilkes-Barre.

Unicornucopia is a 100% nonprofit organization — there are no paid staff, and all donations are used for the direct benefit of the children in the program.

The Jan. 24 event is open to the public. Entrance is $5 per person; however, the fee is waived if guests bring a donation of hygiene items or gift wrapping supplies. Guests will enjoy entertainment, light appetizers, guest bartenders, a signature drink, raffle baskets and more. Reservations are not required.

Unicornucopia originally began as an effort to “Adopt a Christmas Kid” as many people do for the Christmas season. What started as a GoFundMe account with a goal of $1,000 quickly turned into an overwhelming deluge of interest from individuals and businesses in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

The organizations founders are the husband and wife team of Tessa Weigand and Dan Schultz of Penn Lake. Weigand is an ER nurse and Dan is a paramedic.

Tessa said the message was clear — people wanted to help, they just didn’t know how. She said beyond the overwhelming monetary donations, people fulfilled Christmas lists of individual kids, purchased bulk items to be distributed to each child, and recruited local businesses to help. People kept coming back and asking “What else do you need?” until the answer was “More kids to sponsor.”

Tessa said Unicornucopia is 100% donation-driven, and all funds and products donated are used directly to benefit the children we work with. There is no payroll. There are no administrative fees. There are no employees.

“Just a sea of volunteers and one very frazzled HUIC (head unicorn in charge),” she said.

Tessa said Unicornucopia was founded in 2018 and serves more than 130 children per year. She said that number is always going up.

“We deliver the gifts to the group home managers at the beginning of every month,” Tessa said. “We have a strict no contact policy with the children — (we) don’t want them to feel they are receiving charity. We want them to feel they are receiving the gifts from people who care about them.”

For more information, visit www.thegivingunicorn.org.