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News 12 Staff

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We are talking about the committee GNO and the Smart Foundation. Nicole Gazzardi is the president and founder of both. Yes ma'am. Tell me more about the committee GNO and what you all do. So we're a networking platform for female entrepreneurs. We meet every month. It's a membership based. We meet every month we network, we connect, we, we foster genuine connections between women. It's just a great group. The women, they all do business together they refer each other they become friends, they become business partners so it's a great community. Like I said, we're in central Jersey right now and North Jersey, but we do have plans to definitely expand, expand through New Jersey, maybe even other parts of the world. That would be fantastic. How do you recruit women and get women to join? How do they find you? So it's basically word of mouth right now and um we. Do some Facebook and Instagram uh leads and you know but um it's really word of mouth. I mean we invite people to come to the monthly meetings so they can experience it and by the end of it most of them all joined so it's growing organically. You have the monthly meetings what other activities do you all engage in? We'll do master classes. We have um some virtual we'll co-host with other other members, so we'll like to collab. with them um and it's really it's just we'll do some vendor events where we have them set up tables and sell their products. It's just a great group. It's honestly, we call it girls networking out GNO because it feels like a girls night out but we're doing it with purpose, maybe some cocktails and some food. That sounds good. Do they come from all walks of life or is it just business? It's, well, I mean mostly it's business, but we do have people that come just to see what what. Resources they have in the community, you know what's available to them, so we do have women show up just to see what you know resources there are and what they can maybe find that's they didn't know about what's been their reaction when they see everything they're exposed to. Honestly, I always say I always hear that it is just such a genuine vibe the women that come are just all genuine and they're all there to support, so we always say our vibe attracts our tribe. And I, I tell the women if you guys aren't positive then this isn't for you.

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What a beautiful picture of the executive board of the Smart Foundation. Nicole Gazzardi is the president and founder of this group. Tell me all about your executive board and your members. Well, they are all personal friends of mine. They were all at one time single mothers, and they are all about giving back and helping and. Supporting other single mothers, I love that. How did the Smart Foundation get started? So about 20 years ago I was going through my first divorce and my best friend Nadia, who's pictured there with me, um, well, her and I would just go back and forth and talk about she was already a single mom. And I was going through my first divorce and we would just talk about a community for single moms, for women that needed that support maybe that help with figuring out how to pay bills or transportation or getting their child into like an extracurricular activity and we made a joke about it we would say mom made of money like that which we were everything but we were expected to be able to do all of this stuff for our children but on a very limited budget, you know, and. Uh, so we were just talking, just brainstorm how we would start this group, and that was literally 20 years ago and then fast forward to February of 2024 when I had gotten myself into a better position in life. I said, you know what? I'm gonna start that group of women single moms supporting single moms. I already had the committee and I had already experienced single moms becoming, you know, very educated and successful, and they were able to provide for their children. So I said this is an encouragement for maybe that single mom that's just going through it and kind of doesn't see that light at the end of the tunnel and that's how I was born. I said I'm gonna start that group. I called Nadia. I said you'll never guess what I did. I started the the group for single moms and it's not called mom it's called SMART and it stands for single moms All Rise Together. Oh, that's beautiful. They must love that. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Single moms would you say belong? Well, there's not, it's not a group like that where they belong, but we just help anybody could call. Anybody can come for for help when we provide resources, um, we provide clothing, you know, we've, we've helped women get into hotels and we actually donated a. A house in the Bronx uh recently so we donated a house to a single mother that has two children and you know facing some issues and you know so any way we can support them so it's just a community of women. How did they find out about you? So they can learn about us on our website thesmartFoundation.org. We have an Instagram page which is Smart Foundation, so definitely there's other ways they can email info@hemartFoundation.org.

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Nicole Guzzardi joined News 12’s Della Crews to discuss the organizations and their goals.

Spotlight New Jersey: The Committee GNO and the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation

Nicole Guzzardi joined News 12’s Della Crews to discuss the organizations and their goals.

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