25 in '25: For the past 13 years, Julia Warren Mattingly has celebrated RVA, in ways big and small

Julia Warren Mattingly was 17 years old when she first launched her nonprofit, Celebrate RVA, after her experiences volunteering at the Oak Grove Bellemeade Community Center with her grandfather. 

Everyone has a birthday, Julia pointed out. And everyone has the capacity for joy. But not everyone gets to experience joy on their birthday. Ever since, Celebrate RVA has worked to change that by making children's birthdays special.

When Mattingly started the nonprofit she was met with skepticism and curiosity. People saw it as a passion project, but something that wouldn't last past high school. Now more than 7,000 birthday parties later, Mattingly is ready to move on to her next challenge.

After thirteen years with Celebrate RVA, she announced recently she is preparing to step aside to focus on her role as a mom and, she hopes, as a foster parent.

Mattingly was born and raised in Richmond. When she neared the end of high school she was faced with a difficult decision: jet off to Texas A&M University or stay closer to home and attend Randolph-Macon University. After one specific birthday party, the decision became clear.

A child had come to celebrate their birthday, shy and excited to partake in the festivities. When an adult walked in who turned out to be the child’s social worker, Mattingly learned the social worker needed to take him to figure out where he would sleep that night. 

“The biggest choice that he has right now is, like, what balloon animal he's gonna pick out?” Mattingly remembered thinking, “and now he has to be taken away early to go figure out where he's gonna sleep tonight.”

After hearing more about his story, Mattingly knew she wanted to continue her work in the community.

“I really felt like I was supposed to stay here and run Celebrate, and so that's what I've done, and it kind of changed the trajectory of my life," she said. "And so with that, I just kind of set out to celebrate kids, and had no idea what it would turn into. And very quickly, we saw the impact of what joy could do on a child's life.

“When parents are deciding between a roof over the kid's head and food on the table or a birthday party, like, what's going to be the first thing to go? And so having come from like always having a birthday party and always feeling celebrated, I really wanted to give kids that same experience, and just really believe that every child was worthy of a celebration.

“It's kind of the one intrinsic thing that we all have. There's nothing that you have to do to earn it. And everyone deserves to have that celebrated and acknowledged.”

The nonprofit has taken different forms and worn different hats over the years, reacting to community needs. 

When the program started, it would host monthly birthday parties for 30 kids each that Mattingly describes as “the most beautiful form of chaos you've ever seen in your life.” But in 2020, just as the group was about to open its community center in the basement of Section 8 housing, it was forced by the pandemic to change the structure. Instead of hosting in-person parties, the organization switched to a birthday-bag model.

“We saw that it followed more of a hand-up model rather than a hand-out model, so that you're giving parents the resources that they needed to celebrate their child, rather than sending their child to us for us to celebrate them,” she said. “So it gave them those resources to do it themselves, which we got a lot of feedback from parents, This was great. It gave our family time to bond.

"And then it also allowed us to impact a lot more children.”

With the vacant space, the group decided to open up a facilitated learning center for students whose parents were essential workers. The kids aptly named it “Birthday School.”

Now that Mattingly has made the decision to leave the organization, she finds herself reflecting on what has been accomplished.

“We’ve gotten to celebrate 7,000 kids, and those are 7,000 lives across 13 years where we have been able to say, ‘You matter, you deserve this. And as a community, we honor and celebrate you,’” she said. 

“As I am reflecting on the past 13 years, that number means more and more to me … It's kind of the sweet part of making this decision and transitioning out of the role, because I get to reflect on all the good that we've done, all of the amazing people I've met, and the impact that the organization has had, and not be so focused.” 

As she looks at what comes next, Mattingly is most grateful for the people she has met and the stories she has learned from them. 

“They all have a story of why they love to be celebrated, or why they don't like to be celebrated, or why they don't know,” she said. “I've learned that some people just don't know how to experience joy, and it has to be taught in some ways, especially to kids.

"When you do that, you get to know people really well, and you form just the most beautiful friendships and the most unexpected ones. “

Throughout her career, Mattingly has had a unique ability to make community members endeared to her work and cause. Whether in the form of a donated building from a note passed to her in a City Council meeting, subsidized construction costs or volunteer hours, Celebrate RVA has grown as a result of Mattingly’s community connectedness and volunteer willingness.

Mattingly now plans to look inward towards her family, excited to open it up to foster children and grow her family over time.

“For 13 years, my job has been very public and public facing,” she said. “I'm always talking to the media. I'm always pitching Celebrate, going to donors talking about what work we're doing.

“Now I get to bring it back into my home and make it a little bit more private and intimate. This is another way that we can invest in our community, and it doesn't have to be grandiose or flashy or showy, like a birthday party. It can be as simple as a meal around a table and giving a child a safe place to sleep.”

Contact reporting intern Juliana Vandermark at jvandermark@richmonder.org.