Partner Case Study
Hospitality Homes in Boston leveraged their partnership with Project Giving Kids to start a youth volunteer program, building capacity without additional infrastructure or staff.
This case study has been approved by Hospitality Homes
About Hospitality Homes
Hospitality Homes provides free short-term housing in volunteer host homes and donated apartments for families and friends of patients seeking care at Boston-area healthcare organizations. Since 1983, this unique home-away-from-home experience has brought a compassionate response as well as emotional and financial relief to guests in need.
Key Objective
Hospitality Homes didn’t have a youth volunteer program when they joined PGK toward the end of 2016. They wanted to find ways to engage youth in their mission, without needing to coordinate programs on site, while using existing staff and organizational infrastructure.
How We Achieved That Objective
PGK brainstormed several activities with Hospitality Homes. These activities were home-based, and focused on creating comfort and care items for the organization’s clients. These included:
- Assembling jars of ingredients to make hot cocoa, tagged with warm welcome messages
- Crafting infant safety blankets
- Crafting fleece hats
- Assembling snack bags
After brainstorming these activities with Hospitality Homes, we featured these activities on PGK’s website and our YouthGive mobile app (in 2019 we launched the new Give Back App). We also invited Hospitality Homes to participate in our annual Create the Change Day.
Key Results
- Thanks to PGK, Hospitality Homes now has a robust program for youth to contribute to their work!
- Through PGK apps and Create the Change Day events, as of May 2018 young volunteers have created and donated more than:
- 99 jars of cocoa
- 192 gift bags full of snacks
- 70 fleece hats
- 40 infant safety blankets
- Hospitality Homes now actively works with schools and other youth activity groups to create and donate even more comfort and care items!
“We had never had youth volunteer opportunities before our partnership with PGK. Together we created activities tied to mission that families with young children can put together at home to welcome families that stay in our volunteer host homes when they travel to Boston for medical care. The best part of working with PGK has been increased exposure to our organization’s work. We love you guys! And Create the Change Day is pretty spectacular.”
– Shanon Heckethorn, Vice President of Development and Communications, Hospitality Homes