11 minute read
JOHN AND NIKI
Enlightening, Educating & Empowering THE WORLD TO BE GIVING WHILE MAKING A LIVING PROJECT POP DROP & THE CREATION OF GIVEFLUENCERS
BY ANTHONY EWART
This is the story of a beautiful fairy tale we’ve all been living in for a decade. 2021 officially makes it a decade but you always round up in fairy tales. If you truly don’t know the date then you begin with “Once Upon A Time.”
But this is a modern fairy tale so we do know the date. Our story begins in 2011 when John David Snyder and his beautiful wife Niki Shadrow Snyder created Project Pop Drop. If you have a roof over your head, a refrigerator with food and a warm bed to sleep in you haven’t been affected “directly” by the fairy tale of Project Pop Drop, but you most certainly have been affected “indirectly.”
As Carl Jung explained, “We live in a collective unconscious. All of our minds pool together like sweet raindrops in a sun shower and form an invisible ocean of consciousness”. This is how ideas are spread around the world. So when a jolt of happiness and love is infused in the material world it spreads through the immaterial world of our collective unconscious.
When a homeless mother and her children receive food, blankets, personal hygiene products, socks, underwear, sleeping bags and toys from Project Pop Drop the love experienced by that family resonates through our collective unconscious like electrons through copper wires. Instantaneously.
You may have gone to sleep the previous night feeling slightly depressed about conditions in our world. And while you slept John Snyder and Niki Shadrow Snyder were in the dark streets of downtown Los Angeles feeding our homeless brothers and sisters. So, when you woke up the next morning you had a strange sensation of joy. Happiness. A feeling that something good happened in the world in the few hours your body rested. Human suffering was eased. This vibrant, unexplainable sensation of love stays with you all day. It affects the way you interact with everyone you encounter. They, in turn, of course, do the same. Project Pop Drop has created a ripple effect of compassion and caring in the world which gives birth to understanding. The roots to love and peace.
This is the fairy tale that Niki Shadrow Snyder and her husband John Snyder have immersed the world in since 2011 when the intense love they felt for each other produced an idea for the greatest social revolution the world has ever known: the concept of a “givefluencer”.
John David Snyder, Ava Snyder, Chloe Snyder, Dylan Snyder, Levi Snyder & Niki Shadrow Snyder I Hope of The Valley Rescue Mission I Check Presentation Ceremony I Photo By: Ken Craft/ Hope Of The Valley Rescue Mission
There are three characters in this fairy tale: Niki, John... and the world. Throughout both of their lives John and Niki have been consumed with helping the world. Helping people. Sharing love and understanding. We have enough resources in the world that no child should ever go hungry. But children are hungry. And some children die from starvation or malnutrition in this country. John was only in junior high school when he realized the world he witnessed in real life was much different than the world in the media. John may have been thirteen when his father took him to a Lakers game at the Forum in Inglewood. Amidst the dazzling excitement of seeing the Lakers firsthand (those images the TV captured correctly), John was bothered by the other images he never saw on any television network. It was the sight of homeless people John saw sleeping in boxes or on the sidewalk as he drove with his father to the Forum. Those images never left John. Every Project Pop Drop delivery John makes with Niki is a cathartic experience; he’s not only helping people in the material world, he’s healing the homeless people of his memories he saw as a boy that night by the Forum. As Anthony Hopkin’s would probably tell John, he’s “Silencing the Lambs” of his childhood. Niki Shadrow was a celebrity stylist extraordinaire in Hollywood. Niki’s aesthetic sense was and is palpable. Just talking to Niki, you’re hoping somehow through that osmosis some of her fashion artistry will rub off on you. Niki uses color in her styling the way Matisse used colors on his magnificent paintings and collages.Or the way Ravel infused all of his musical orchestrations with vibrant colors, most notably in his “Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Suite).” But Matisse and Ravel both knew true art is steeped in real love. Just as nuclear fusion fuels the sun, love is the nuclear fusion for creativity. It is why there’s a clear difference, between the beautiful sarcasm and wit of Andy Warhol’s art before “The Factory,” and after, when sincere love was forgotten as Warhol slowly fell in love with (and extended) the “15 minutes of fame” line he originated, believing that everyone was entitled to at least that. Niki was able to circumvent the narcissistic traps of fame in Hollywood because, like her future husband John, she was aware of the real world. Niki excelled in Hollywood because she never worshipped it. It was never real. It was art. It was fashion. It was fun. It was not real life. For Niki and John people suffering in this world was a real problem that had to be solved in real time.
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. “ WINSTON CHURCHILL
John and Niki created the word “givefluencer” and a community for “givefluencers” called, The “Givefluencer Network”. A “givefluencer” is a person that is influencing the world by what they give back. Before John and Niki found each other they were two strangers in Los Angeles busy with their careers while simultaneously trying to figure out how to save the world. Everyone who knew them, their friends and family, said they’d never get married. How could they? They were always busy. Between their careers and volunteer work there was just no time for dating. People around them in our City of Angels were hurting and hungry. This was a real battle for Niki and John, and this is what writers don’t understand today. An antagonist in a story doesn’t have to be an actual person. Niki and John are the protagonists of this fairy tale, the antagonist is hunger. The villain is poverty. The monster is homelessness. There can be engaging, thrilling stories where all the people are good and what they are fighting to overcome are situations. Good news for filmmakers, stories like this require no CGI, just heartfelt emotions, love, courage and humanity which are the essential ingredients and components for immortal stories that bind and bond human beings together. The story of Niki and John is a story of this caliber; it is a fairy tale that connects us all through compassion and love for humanity. If you’re inclined to think Niki and John spent their entire first date discussing ways to change the world you’d be right. But that’s the point here. You don’t need twenty matching points on a dating site to fall in love with someone, just a common, worthy goal that you both spend all your time together pursuing. It was on that first date that John and Niki created Project Pop Drop. That was over a decade ago. Now they’re married with four kids and the philanthropic organization they dreamed of on their first date is a reality. Project Pop Drop delivers life saving supplies every month from coast to coast. The foundation helps contribute to facilitating more than 90,000 meals to individuals and families experiencing homelessness. They are well on their way to helping feed millions with their initiatives. But here’s the best part, the entire organization is funded through John and Niki’s parent company “Platinum International Products And Services .” This was the blueprint that Niki and John came up with all those years ago. “Giving” should not be something we only do every Thanksgiving or Christmas (sometimes both), it must be a concept woven into the fabric of your organization or business so you can give back to the community not just once a month but make an impact three hundred and sixty five day a year. John and Niki believe you should always lead by example. Their own children, Chloe, age 7 and their natural triplets, Ava, Dylan and Levi, age 3, all participate
in giving back with the program as they personally deliver the donations with their parents on the last Saturday of every month 12 months a year.
Can you imagine if every business in Los Angeles contributed a small portion of their profits every month to the homeless or hunger situation in our city? It would transform LA into a city of the future where happiness is shared by all, and we would defy the predictions made of our fate by great dystopian writers like Aldous Huxley, Philip K. Dick and George Orwell.
“Giving” as an agenda, what a concept. Becoming, as Niki and John frame it, a “givefluencer”. Their day job is Platinum International Products And Services, an office supply company with a private label brand of toner and ink cartridges. All of their clients understand that when they do business with Niki and John they are also giving to their sister company Project Pop Drop. Their Clients are their partners. In fact they call their clients their “pop drop partners.” Their customers are partnering with Niki and John to support Project Pop Drop. They are printing with a purpose. They are giving while making a living. Downtown Los Angeles has a homeless population somewhere between seven and ten thousand. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority released the results of the 2020 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, which showed over 66,436 people in Los Angeles County experiencing homelessness, This represents a 12.7% rise from last year’s point-in-time count. This number is rising every day.
Niki and John work closely with the homeless shelters, missions and food pantries all over greater Los Angeles and in Orange County, which has been described as the “shadow of Disneyland” since such a huge population of homeless people have been forced financially to live there.
John and Niki coordinate food, clothing, toiletry and toy drives with numerous businesses throughout Los Angeles under the umbrella of Project Pop Drop. In 2017 Niki and John, along with the COO, Jeff Korell, inaugurated a school program with middle schools and high schools all over Los Angeles with the mantra “Teach the youth of America to give back.” Their mission is to enlighten, educate & empower their student partners. They’ve taught students about the plight of the homeless and how we can all help in our own way. Niki and John show students how they can implement food and clothing drives for the homeless in their school. Several teachers and student partners have accompanied Niki and John on Project Pop Drop deliveries to homeless shelters so they can see first- hand the impact of their efforts. Platinum International Products And Services has embraced the concept of an ethics driven company and redefined Cause Marketing by helping all companies and organizations give back even if their business itself doesn’t have a compelling (motivating) backstory written into their marketing.
All businesses and individuals can be “givefluencers” by simply caring about people on a daily basis and creating a system for helping those less fortunate and sticking to it. Make it a part of your daily life and routine. Becoming a “givefluencer” is a state of mind achieved by understanding all human beings are connected. As a society we can only function correctly when we’re all taking care of each other.
“The Secret” (2006) dramatically illustrated the power of the “Law of Attraction,” so with Niki and John generating this much love in Los Angeles they were bound to be drawn to other loving souls. It is not surprising that there is now a connection with Oprah Winfrey, the “Queen of Compassion and Giving. Project Pop Drop will be a featured with their Project Pop Drop team on an episode in the Emmy Award winning TV show on Oprah’s “OWN” network for the TV show, Give coming up next month. We’ll keep you updated on that news because John and Niki Snyder are going to become regular features in Hollywood Weekly.
John and Niki run their philanthropic foundation on both the West Coast and on the East Coast, with their national headquarters in Los Angeles and a regional office in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. They have also produced events for the homeless in South Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, DC In every state, Niki and John chant their motto “Give and Receive.” Project Pop Drop was recently awarded a gold medal and the “Presidents Volunteer Service Award” in recognition for their commitment to strengthen our nation and communities through service. This was a Presidential Honor for their great work in the community. It was accepted by their Regional Vice President, Sharon Edwards. John and Niki were personally inspired by Steve Jobs in his iconic commercial that referenced, “Here’s to the crazy ones, the ones crazy enough to think they can change the world, because they are the ones that usually do”. All this from two people who only had two wishes in life. One wish was to help the world, the other wish was to find personal love. I’m happy to say this is a fairy tale where they accomplished both wishes, and in doing so John and Niki have included all of us in their. John and Niki look forward to showing the world that becoming a “givefluencer” is a sure way to achieve not only your life’s purpose but your own personal happily ever after.
