What happens when a group of women decide to make a difference in their local community? We invite you to discover the inspiring journey of Jill Sheridas, the founder of Fab and Fun Friends, and learn about the power of community spirit and the joy of giving back. Starting from a humble gathering of women enjoying late lunches, this social group has evolved into a philanthropic powerhouse in Palm Beach, pushing boundaries and changing lives.
Jill shares riveting stories of how the group has provided Christmas joy for a family living in a motel, to their upcoming Breast Cancer Fundraiser in October. Listen to how they have not only created a space for women to connect and enjoy their time but contributed significantly to their local community with their impactful initiatives. From book clubs to art groups, Fab and Fun Friends has something for everyone. Learn about the heartwarming impact they have on women's lives and their invitation for younger women to join, that encapsulates the nurturing and empowering spirit of the Fab and Fun Friends. Join us on this journey that sheds light on the importance of community, friendship, and the joy of giving back.
What happens when a group of women decide to make a difference in their local community? We invite you to discover the inspiring journey of Jill Sheridas, the founder of Fab and Fun Friends, and learn about the power of community spirit and the joy of giving back. Starting from a humble gathering of women enjoying late lunches, this social group has evolved into a philanthropic powerhouse in Palm Beach, pushing boundaries and changing lives.
Jill shares riveting stories of how the group has provided Christmas joy for a family living in a motel, to their upcoming Breast Cancer Fundraiser in October. Listen to how they have not only created a space for women to connect and enjoy their time but contributed significantly to their local community with their impactful initiatives. From book clubs to art groups, Fab and Fun Friends has something for everyone. Learn about the heartwarming impact they have on women's lives and their invitation for younger women to join, that encapsulates the nurturing and empowering spirit of the Fab and Fun Friends. Join us on this journey that sheds light on the importance of community, friendship, and the joy of giving back.
Hi, this is Rebecca and Stephanie again with. I Love Palm Beach and today we have a very special guest. We have Jill Sheridas here and she formed an organization called Fab and Fun Friends and it's basically a social group that has grown in huge numbers and has become very special for a lot of ladies in the area. It's mainly ladies the boys get invited to sometimes, but, jill, please tell us.
Speaker 2:Boys allow.
Speaker 1:Boys allow.
Speaker 2:Boys allow.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's better that way, but tell us about how this all started and how many people and all the wonderful things you guys do.
Speaker 2:Fab and Fun Friends. It's a social organization with the mission of making our community a better place while we meet new friends and enjoy all the treasures our piece of paradise has to offer. Started about 12 women. We originated from a group who was just meeting and having late lunches and happy hours, called Ladies who Lunch Late. I will give a shout out to Maureen Butler, who founded that group You're on January 1st in 2021.
Speaker 2:I just decided that we wanted to play pickleball and do a lot more charity work. We did a little bit of a charity event with them in 2020. But I just decided that I wanted to focus more on giving back to the community, because I feel when women get together, their strength is unbelievable, what they can do. We started by just giving Christmas to a woman in a hotel room with three children. One of them was severely handicapped Getting the kids every single Christmas present they could possibly want. We eventually got her a car and the ability to get out of the motel room. Connections we have in this group are unbelievable and it just takes a couple of women and they know these people and they know these people.
Speaker 2:And then now we are going on our big October Breast Cancer Fundraiser where we're raising money for a woman nonprofit in our group. It's called Comics Crushing Cancer. She's having a huge show this Friday evening, our big, big event. Hopefully Jen Grimes will get on here with Comics Crushing Cancer and we are having our fundraising event for them on October 26 at East Point Country Club with a lot of connections. We've more than doubled our money goal. As far as what we're gonna raise, I have a feeling it's gonna go a lot more than that, but it's getting really exciting.
Speaker 2:You can see, I'm gonna go ahead and just show you. I have a bunch of girls coming over in a bit to work on the raffle prizes, donations just coming in daily as far as our swag bags and our raffles and our sponsors. It's a great group and we don't just give back. We have a ton of fun doing it. I've got right today as we speak, a book club going on. At this morning to this evening. There's an art group making centerpieces. They're a group in one of the art studios in town and then there's also another evening book club going on. So there is something to do on a daily basis in this group. It's just become a phenomenal way to meet people and to get back to our community.
Speaker 1:I know I've had a lot of ladies that I've met in the group that have said this group has changed their life. They didn't know how to connect with other women. They had moved here from maybe up north and they were looking for that camaraderie of some girlfriends and now they're going to something almost every day and having a blast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am brought to tears on almost a daily basis. A woman had come up to me and said that she had this battling breast cancer through this and it's gotten her through. I actually will bring tears to my eyes. It's gotten her through cancer and I mean, if we can do that for one woman, that's all we need. That's all I needed to hear to just help each other.
Speaker 2:Literally started this during COVID, where I moved here from Washington DC. I lived in Virginia and in Maryland. I lived on both sides of the DMV, but it was hard to meet people during COVID and there was a lot of women I was meeting. Even in my neighborhood I've been a brand new neighborhood at. We're having trouble meeting people and also just feeling a sense of community. When you come to someplace new and it's such a beautiful area.
Speaker 2:It's very different, this part of South Florida from other communities where I think that people are really give back type people and just want to help each other and it's just not as pretentious as other areas that I've been in South Florida Not to say that there are other areas that are pretentious, but I love Palm Beach Gardens, I love the Jupiter area, I love the people and I'm just so happy to be part of it and be able to give back to the community.
Speaker 2:And I'm not going to say we are a woman social group, but a shout out to the man. We get a lot of help from a lot of people in our community, a lot of businesses, from sponsors and donors on our events to letting us host our book clubs or meetings at local restaurants. It's nonstop. It amazes me, but our swag bags that we're giving out at the breast cancer event have a value of over $1,200 each inside the swag bag and those are all gifts from the community. So I mean a $100 ticket and you're getting a. You know you're not only giving back to charity, you're coming out with something that's very valuable. It's just great. It's great, you know you give a little and you get a lot. It really happens.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm coming to that event and I can't wait. It's going to be a blast. Can't wait to see what's in our goodie bag. I know I went to the colon cancer and I was blown away by that fundraiser. Now, anybody out there that's listening to this we have no more tickets left, so we can't even invite you to this wonderful event.
Speaker 2:So it's been hours. I could not have done it. Without Carol Neme, kathy South, jamie Burdette, laura Lieber the women that put this together with me it wouldn't have happened. So I mean we have such an amazing group of women that really worked hard and all the women who ran out and helped us get raffle prizes and donations and sponsors. We had a connection through one of the women in our group, paula Ruizzi, who knew somebody from Toyota and now Murphy Toyota Auto Group. Murphy Auto Group that is doing a give back for every Toyota that sells in their dealership is going to be donate percent, not a percent, and the amount is going to be donated back and we'll find out at the event how much that is. But for the month of October it's going to set this apart from all other fundraisers that we've done. Wow.
Speaker 1:Stephanie, do you have any questions for Jill?
Speaker 2:No, it's all just very impressive and thank you so much for everything that you do across the board. As far as involvement, I mean, are the majority of the women involved retired? Are people doing some events here and there? I mean, how can people get involved when they have a busy schedule but they still want to jump in and get back to the community and join the mission? I'm going to say the majority of the women, I will tell you the demographics are 60 and above. So it is women who have retired gets over 60 percent or 16 above Retirees who want to give back and meet people, enjoy our group.
Speaker 2:But we play pickleball daily. I play with our group three times a week. We have scheduled I think it's on our schedule five days a week and probably, as it gets cooler, seven, it will be seven days a week. So we don't just do. And as far as fundraising and helping our community, part of that is also this, the social aspect of making our members happy and connecting with other people. So we do encourage all members to plan events.
Speaker 2:It's not just the administration team or just me planning events although at this point I do do a lot of them but we let everybody plan an event as long as it meets the criteria and that is just. It's not promoting a business. We have a couple of rules in our group. Number one is be kind and number two is like, no self-promotion or advertising of a business but during a fundraiser. That changes. When we have a sponsor, we will advertise their business, but just for that particular deal, like they're a sponsor or donor. But we really want to keep the self-promotion off the page if possible and just really make it what our mission statement's about.
Speaker 1:Though, how would you feel about having some younger girls involved? If Stephanie got some girlfriends together and planned an event?
Speaker 2:We would love it. In fact, we do have a lot of women that say I work during the day, I can't do, you know, I cannot go to book club. Therefore, we have one of our girls, megan, who's leading the book club this morning and also is leading it tonight. She's a pilot, so she is busy as can be. Just flew back from Israel which, thank God, goodness, she's safe and sound back on our back on our grounds, just to let yeah, so, just to let you know that we have everybody able to plan events.
Speaker 2:I have another woman planning a book club who had just messaged me for November Book club with the author or the author's coming to be part of, you know, the book club. This will be our fourth one of that nature and we do that sometimes in the evening, sometimes in the day. We have Bunko a lot of times in the evening, or happy hour. So there are three or four events on a daily basis posted on our page, on our Facebook group page, which is called Fab and Fun Friends. Everybody can join it, as long as they're female and they are abide by the rules, which is be kind, not too hard, and we haven't had too many problems with that We've had mostly all nice people, which is just a testament to the community that we're living in. It's a fantastic community with really wonderful, wonderful residents here.
Speaker 1:Well. So I want to recap anybody that wants to get involved they need to find the Facebook page and then you can join on the Facebook page and there are a ton of events and I want to go to all of them and I'm lucky if I can do one month. I'm a crazy scheduled girl but I look on Facebook, I support and I follow along and say, damn, I wish I could have went to that one. I met you girls I don't know if you recall I am Place, I Hope is kind of my little go-to charity and I was doing an event at the Aesthetics Lounge and it was about a year ago and all of a sudden all you girls showed up and I'm like, oh, I don't know this person. Who knows these people? And everybody kept saying, oh, we're Fab and Fun. I'm like I want to be Fab and Fun. Who?
Speaker 2:are these Fab?
Speaker 1:and Fun girls and I think probably 30 of you showed up at that event and we didn't know each other, but it brought awareness to me and you and you really helped our event turn out really good.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm glad we could do that. We last night we had a group of women teach foster teens that are in the maternity home. I love that how to cook healthy dinners on a budget and that is something that we really work. We do a lot for Place of Hope. As far as hands-on work, it's one of the greatest things that we do.
Speaker 2:Also, cooking dinners at the Quantum House, at the Aesthetics Lounge and Spa. Shout out to them. They're one of our huge sponsors, huge Violent Auction Prize for us, huge FAB sponsor. We wouldn't be where we are in this fundraiser without them as well. I'm as long as in our other FAB sponsors too, including yourself. You're one of our wonderful sponsors. I'm glad that we could. That's what we do. We try to go in numbers and support people. We had one of our women write a book A Thousand Things to Do in Jupiter Before you Die, amy Woods. She had a book launch in the library. We came out in droves. We all came there, got her book, got it signed. If we can support our members in any way, we're here. That's what we love to do.
Speaker 1:Well, Jill, I know you're busy getting ready for this fundraiser. I don't want to keep you, but I wanted to use this opportunity to get you guys out there a little bit. Thank you, I can see you guys on the 26th, for sure. Hopefully I'll get you an event before then. But anything you need, reach out. Maybe I can get Stephanie and I to plan an event and bring some younger girls in.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, at all ages. We're welcome, of course. Thank you.
Speaker 1:All right, blimey, we missed comics crushing cancer. I know we had a scheduling issue yesterday, but we'll get you in here, too another time. That's great, thank you.
Speaker 2:Have a wonderful day. Thank you so much for this opportunity. All right, thank you, bye-bye, bye.