About us
We are the Butterfly Effect Project.
A movement born from one woman’s promise to pay it forward one child, one obstacle, one dream at a time.
Where it began
One mentor changed everything.
Tijuana Fulford grew up in Riverside, New York. By the numbers, her future was already written: poverty, teen pregnancy, the same cycle that had held her community for generations. Then a mentor stepped into her life.
That one relationship gave her the confidence, the tools, and the stubbornness to write a different story. She has never forgotten what a single person’s belief can do, because she lived it.
The promise
March 8, 2014. Eight girls.
Tijuana – Ms. Tia to every child who knows her – gathered eight girls from Riverhead, Riverside, and Flanders. No building. No budget. Just a mission: empower, enlighten, and enhance every girl’s future, one girl at a time, one obstacle at a time.
She wanted these girls to have what she almost didn’t: a fair chance to broaden their horizons, with the obstacles like transportation, cost, and circumstance cleared out of the way.
The ripple
Eight became eight hundred.
The girls became Butterflies. Their brothers and friends asked to join, and the Dragonflies were born. Today BEP serves more than 700 youth across Suffolk County.
And in 2024 the community did something Ms. Tia never dared put on a vision board: it bought BEP a home of its own at 1146 Main Road in Riverhead. A permanent place where every child who walks in is already welcome.
The BEP Oath — recited at every meeting
I am strong. I am beautiful. I am intelligent. I am thankful. I am the future.
We are the Butterfly Effect Project!
Shared values
What we believe
We keep our promises. Every choice is guided by what’s best for our Butterflies and Dragonflies because that’s how children learn what leading with heart looks like.
We invest in the neighborhoods our youth come from, because a child can’t be separated from their community, and shouldn’t have to be.
We honor every part of who a child is. True empowerment ripples outward: it starts with the child, reaches their family, and moves through the whole community.
We tell the truth – management, staff, Ambassadors, volunteers, Butterflies and Dragonflies alike. Trust is built through transparency at every level.
We welcome and celebrate every culture our youth bring through the door. In conflict, we pause, breathe, and deal with the issue, never the person.
Owning your actions is how you grow. It matters even more when younger eyes are watching you. And at BEP, they always are.
Every chapter looks different because every community is different. We learn from our participants as much as they learn from us.
The people
Led from the front —-and from within
Ms. Tia
Craig Hasday
The Head Butterfly
The impact
The ripple, measured
Every number is pulled from BEP’s own program data and shared as part of our commitment to transparency.
And one number nobody tracks in a spreadsheet: 78% of BEP parents have gone back to invest in their own futures: school, new careers, new starts.
The ripple moves in every direction.
This is what happens when a community invests in its youth.
Join the community making it possible.