What would it feel like not to have anyone notice or celebrate your birthday, year after year? This is a reality for thousands of children in Massachusetts. Each year some 10,500 families with children live in homeless shelters, and for many of these young people, birthdays pass without acknowledgement or celebration. Their parents often feel ashamed or guilty that they cannot provide more, and the children secretly feel they are unworthy. Birthday Wishes is a small, nonprofit organization that relies on the goodwill of some 300 volunteers to bring birthday celebrations into more than 32 homeless shelters. With two part time staff they are able to provide birthdays to over 450 children, and this number grows when you consider the other children living in the shelter and attending the parties. One of the most faithful donors who lives out-of-state, gives to Birthday Wishes because his wife was homeless and remembers how painful it was to grow up without anyone remembering her birthday. Outside the shelters, children as young as six-years-old have chosen to donate their birthday parties to a child living in a shelter. On their birthdays they ask family and friends to bring gifts and party supplies that can be donated to a homeless child living in a shelter. Birthday Wishes will use donations to expand its number of shelters, purchase birthday supplies and Polaroid film, pay entertainers, and cover its core rent and operations costs.