How It All Began

It started in the 1980's, with a woman named Cindy. She married and moved to follow her husband's dream of getting away from it all.  Cindy loved her new home and the peacefulness that living in the north woods offered.  But Cindy was lonely and she missed all of her girlfriends.  One day, she was asked to join a local group of women known as the Shadow Sisters. The Shadow Sisters would each select a name of another woman and throughout the year they would secretly do good deeds for their chosen Sister.  They would send cards or gifts to her or help her out by having someone mow grass or rake leaves.  At the end of the year, they would all get together and reveal who had whom.  Soon, Cindy knew all the woman in her small town and had a couple new lifelong friends.

Cindy's daughter, Stacie, was always jealous of Shadow Sisters and wished she could join.  But Stacie did not live in Cindy's community so she was not eligible to join.  She thought it was such a fun idea and hoped some day she would be able to join a similar group of friends.  A few years later, Stacie moved to Las Vegas and found her self far away from home and her friends; just like Cindy decades before.  She befriended a woman named Danielle and shared the idea of Shadow Sisters.  They thought they could start something similar but just couldn't find the right women to get the group started.  So they began writing to each other signing their name as "Shadow Sister".

Stacie moved back to the Midwest and sadly Cindy passed away in 2011.  Stacie decided she wanted to do something to honor her mother's memory.  Stacie kept coming back to the idea of Shadow Sisters and thought if she created a group like her mother had been part of it would be the perfect way to honor the giving person that Cindy was, and how much she valued her female friends.

But where to start? Stacie had a friend through her work named Carolyn.  She shared with Carolyn the idea of Shadow Sisters and how she wanted to start a similar group maybe within their work community or in the Chicagoland area.  Carolyn loved the idea but why limit it to local ladies? Stacie and Carolyn were traveling to Tucson, AZ to visit Carolyn's sister, Marnie.  Carolyn told Stacie, " let's wait until we get to Arizona and share this with my sister, she will know what to do."

Directly from the airport, Marnie took her hungry guests to lunch at a local restaurant called Beyond Bread.  Before Marnie could even take a bite of her sandwich, Carolyn announces, " Marnie, Stacie has something to ask you. Stacie, ask Marnie what you have to ask her."  Marnie, thinking she was about to be pulled into some intense pyramid plan or even possibly a cult, she started to relax when she heard what Stacie had to share.  Throughout the visit in Tucson they talked, brain stormed and planned how they would start Shadow Sisters on a national level.  At the end of the visit, over High Tea, they were ready to put it into action.  Each of them would invite three woman to participate in the first Shadow Sister cohort.  Stacie invited the previously mentioned Danielle, her stepmom, Nancy and a close friend Erica.  Marnie invited three close friends;  Andrea and Andrea's daughter Jenny, and her friend Linda.  Carolyn invited her daughter Claire, her Aunty Kathy and a close friend, Patti.  They called themselves the Dirty dozen.

SHADOW SISTER BEGAN ON JULY 17, 2011; CINDY'S BIRTHDAY.  Today we have hundreds of members and have spread the Shadow Sister magic on an international level with members in several countries.  Sadly, Stacie passed in 2021 but Carolyn and Marnie continue to keep Shadow Sisters alive and honor the memory of her dream created so many years ago.