4Good Do-Gooder

Today, I interviewed Erika Athanas, founder of 4Good.

Erika and I have been friends since college and her resume is impressive; however this organization is by far, one of her greatest creations.

Erika began by stating that

“living and bringing up two kids in the sometimes overly ostentatious city of LA, my husband Peter and I felt compelled to make sure our kids understood the importance of giving back. That one measure of success is not only in what you do for a living, but more so in what you do when you ARE living. I wanted to make sure I was leading by example and actively participating in my community by taking time to give back with my kids and husband by my side.”

Q.  What is 4 Good? & What moved you to create this organization?

A.  Two years ago I co-founded 4GOOD, a Los Angeles-based non-profit social networking outreach organization with the sole mission of helping families participate in volunteer activities that foster the values of kindness, compassion, tolerance, community responsibility, and good citizenship.

My goal was to address the limited prospects that welcome kids into the spectrum of volunteering so we sponsor and track family volunteer opportunities within the Los Angeles area. 4GOOD’s mission allows us to support many different causes enabling us to give back to a multitude of community issues.

After finding it difficult to locate opportunities that specifically encouraged families to volunteer together, I decided to start a group on Facebook called 4GOOD.

With the help and guidance of some good friends, we worked on building our network and soon we had 150 followers looking for us to help them find appropriate and interesting family-friendly volunteer opportunities in Los Angeles.

In the summer of 2009, we decided to make it official and started the application process for 501(c)3 status in hopes of encouraging thousands more to join the movement!!

It’s a simple mission; help other families easily find volunteer activities to help foster the values of kindness, compassion, tolerance, community responsibility and good citizenship.

What we wanted just didn’t exist so we just created it.

We now have more than 2000 volunteers in our network. All local like-minded families wanting to spend time doing good in their community.

Q.  What is your short-term vision?

A. Short term vision is to continue to grow the volunteer base and come up with more and more events to suggest and participate.

Q.  Long term?

A.  Long term we hope to create 4GOOD chapters all over the country and create a national network of Do-Gooders!

I started 4GOOD to help my kids understand the concepts of citizenship & sharing with those less fortunate, yet I have struck a nerve with so many other parents out there who want the same for their kids. Not only in LA but all over the country,people are asking for a 4GOOD in their community.

Our long-term goal is to help other communities… we are looking to take this movement to the next level. The sooner children get involved, the more likely they will continue to volunteer later in life.

Q.  I LOVE this!  What are some of your favorite events so far?

A. The book drive and delivery of books to the school we donated books to this year.

Q.  Please share some of the challenges you’ve encountered in creating a Non Profit.  Are you a one-woman Show?

A.  It’s hard work and takes a tremendous amount of time… but now we have 2 amazing volunteers that give 5 – 10 hours a week and help me! This has been fantastic.

NOTE:  In June 2011, Erika’s family was awarded the Scholastic Parent & Child Magazine’s Family of the Year award.

They were featured in their June/July issue and Scholastic even created an illustrated book about them called “ A Family 4good”.