Butterfly Effect Project cancels fundraiser amid threats
Threatening racist phone calls and hateful remarks aimed at the Riverhead-based nonprofit The Butterfly Effect Project have escalated in the past week, so much so that founder Tijuana Fulford decided to cancel an upcoming Pearls of Wisdom fundraiser event due to safety concerns.
Following racist social media attacks in the comment section of a Feb. 23 Facebook post promoting its 10th annual Wo/man Empower Wo/men fundraiser, the Butterfly Effect Project began receiving consistent anonymous calls from unidentified individuals.
It started with people calling BEP headquarters and hanging up, which Ms. Fulford said she didn’t think was out of the ordinary at first. However, once BEP began announcing more details about its Pearls of Wisdom event, she said the calls grew progressively worse, with people hurling profanities, anti-Black comments and racist tropes.
BEP’s annual Pearls of Wisdom tea party fundraiser was scheduled for March 22. It would have featured 12 remarkable women — a majority of them Black — each of whom planned to share three minutes of wisdom with a young audience in hopes of empowering the “next generation of leaders,” the initial Facebook announcement read.
BEP began spotlighting the women on Facebook on March 8 by posting images, including their photos, names and professions. A couple of days later, the organization began receiving anonymous calls, most of someone laughing and hanging up.
Then, on March 11, Ms. Fulford received a call to her direct extension on which a distorted male voice said, “Twelve monkeys jumping on the bed … while you’re celebrating eating bananas at your [N-word] church, we will be sweetening tanks and slashing tires.”
Realizing this was a threat to the safety of the speakers, attendees and young audience members at in the Pearls of Wisdom event, Ms. Fulford decided to cancel the fundraiser.
“It’s one thing to be safe and it’s another thing to feel safe. When you take away the opportunity for somebody to feel safe, it’s not easy to get back,” Ms. Fulford said in a phone interview. “I’m all for social justice and having the ability to take up space, to be safe, seen and validated, but for the first time I have to step back, reset myself as a human being first — I was called the N-word, I was called a monkey.”
As of now, all other Butterfly Effect Project programming will continue as planned, including its Wo/man Empower Wo/men fundraiser, which first sparked the “disgusting racist tropes, hateful demands and vile ignorance” toward BEP, Ms. Fulford said.
The group also decided to take a pause this past weekend to regroup and figure out how to improve safety and security protocols moving forward, as well as how to best meet the needs of their young butterflies and dragonflies following these incidents.
The organization first filed an official police report last month with the Riverhead Police Department, who then transferred the report to the Suffolk County Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit. At the time, Ms. Fulford said, authorities were handed over information on the identities of the individuals who left the bigoted comments, majority of whom were not from the local community.
Both the Suffolk County Hate Crimes Unit and Riverhead police determined the attacks were not considered hate crimes, but hate incidents, which was “a whole other pill to swallow” for Ms. Fulford.
The SCPD defines a hate crime as “a specified offense … committed or intended to be committed in whole or substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, ancestry, religious practice or age of a person, regardless of whether that belief or perception is correct.”
A hate incident is defined as “an incident that is apparently bias motivated involving an element of hate targeting a protected class, regardless of whether the belief concerning the target’s membership in that protected class is correct, and regardless of whether said incident is unlawful.”
Although not legally considered crimes, the Riverhead Police Department is still investigating the incidents, Ms. Fulford said. Officers have also increased patrol units around the nonprofit’s Jamesport headquarters and guaranteed security at future events.
The uncertainly about where the calls are coming from — Long Island or elsewhere — has made the situation even more stressful, Ms. Fulford said. On top of that, the cancellation of an event is a major blow to the nonprofit’s funding.
Although Pearls of Wisdom is typically a smaller fundraiser, the money invested into the event is gone, along with up to $8,000 in ticket sales that would have been used benefit BEP’s College Access and Retention Program, which primarily assists BEP’s high school students in covering the cost of college applications.
The Suffolk County Legislature significantly cut funding to the Butterfly Effect Project, as well as several other nonprofits run by people of color, in its 2025 Adopted Operating Budget, Ms. Fulford said. Last year, BEP received $15,571 from Suffolk County; this year it received only $5,462 — with no notice or explanation of the reduction.
Multiple town officials and local legislators have reached out to or visited the Butterfly Effect Project to show support, however, and Ms. Fulford said “action behind the words means something.” She urged all elected officials to make public statements “acknowledging and condemning these heinous racist acts and to stand united with BEP.”
“I believe that myself and my organization as a whole represent everything about everything that is good. We show respect and appreciate every piece of living thing out there, good and bad, and I’m okay with [calling out what’s] wrong,” Ms. Fulford said. “What bothers me is I’m waiting for certain people to say that’s wrong; I have to wait to hear it, and that hurts.”
Ms. Fulford launched The Butterfly Effect Project in 2014 and achieved nonprofit status the following year. In its infancy, the group held meetings in the Riverhead Free Library basement with just eight girls from the Riverhead and Flanders area. Today, the organization has grown to over 20 chapters that serve more 700 girls and boys across Suffolk County.
At the end of last year, The Butterfly Effect Project opened its permanent home in Jamesport and celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Since the beginning, Ms. Fulford’s mission has been to “break down racial, cultural, economic and social barriers and empower young girls from our communities, no matter their background, through horizon-expanding programming and opportunities,” she said in a previous statement.
The Butterfly Effect Project has received an outpouring of love and support from community members during this difficult time, and many have expressed a desire to help the organization. The nonprofit’s leadership has announced four areas in which it seeks support: events, security, community-building and BEP’s youth. Those interested in assisting BEP can do the following:
- Become a sponsor for the 10th annual Wo/man Empower Wo/men event, scheduled for May 17. Learn about the event and various sponsorship opportunities, as well as purchase tickets and tables at https://www.bepgirls.org/wew2025.
- Donate to fund additional security measures. The organization needs new lighting, a security system, updated phone systems and coordinated alarms to ensure anyone in the building in well-protected. To contribute, visit https://tinyurl.com/DonateToBEP.
- Support rebuilding of a community garden. BEP is in the process of creating a new, larger intergenerational community garden at its Jamesport campus that will serve as a recreational outdoor learning space for growing organic, sustainable flowers and produce. To contribute, visit https://tinyurl.com/DonateToBEP.
- Empower BEP’s Youth Future. Since proceeds from the canceled Pearls of Wisdom event will no longer benefit its College Access and Retention Program, BEP is fundraising to send two butterflies to a pre-college medical program at Duke University this summer. To help Gigi and Gianna advance their medical careers, contributions can be made at https://tinyurl.com/HelpGGMedicalCareers.
