WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Whenever she has a free moment, Sara Cunningham heads to at busy area and offers complete strangers free hugs. 

A mother from Oklahoma, she knows what it’s like to be rejected by your parents for being gay. 

That’s because she used to be one of those parents. 

When her son Parker came out to her back in 2010, she didn’t handle it very well.

“I said some things and I did some things that I regret,”Sara told Spectrum News 1. 

It was a gay Pride parade she attended with Parker in 2014 that inspired her to change. 

“I went home that night covered head to toe with glitter, but I also went home with horror stories about, for example, a young girl who said it had been four years since got a hug from her mom,” recalled Sara.

From that experience, she started a nonprofit called Free Mom Hugs, helping LGBTQ children with financial, medical and legal help, and, of course, lots of hugs.

“It’s just about being a loving presence for these beautiful, spirit-filled people,” she said. 

Last year, Sara took yet another stand. She wrote a Facebook post offering to be a “stand-in” mom for LGBTQ couples who were rejected by their parents. 

“I posted a picture with my hand in the air saying, 'if your biological mom won’t come to your same-sex wedding then you call me, I’ll be there,'” she said. “'I’ll even bring the bubbles.'”

The post went viral and soon people accepted her offer. The stand-in mom has already stood up for two couples, and she’s booked for two more weddings this year. 

Sara's story will now be getting the Hollywood treatment, after her memoir about her journey with her son How We Sleep at Night, caught the attention of actress Jamie Lee Curtis. 

“She loved the book so she acquired the rights to it and now she’s making a movie out of it,” said Cunningham. 

But perhaps the best thing to come out of all of it, she said, is her newfound relationship with her son Parker. 

“It gives me hope, because not only my mom was able to become affirming, but also because she’s able to affirm all these other children,” Parker said.

Five years ago, Sara's attendance at that parade opened her mind. Now she's opening her arms in the hope that everyone will feel as accepted as her son now does.