The Holiday Spirit
Winter 2008 Newsletter
Purpose of The Holiday Spirit
In an effort to bring all Holiday Project Localities closer together, The Holiday Spirit will be published during the year with articles on what’s new with Localities and information on what’s available to support you in your adventure towards another successful Holiday Project Season
We encourage comments, support, pictures, articles and information on what is going on in your Locality. With your support, we can all benefit from each other’s knowledge and spirit, at any holiday.
What's New
THP Annual Fundraiser
The Holiday Project
Board of Directors
We have
successfully completed THP 2007 Fundraiser, and do to the generosity
of our patrons, we raised close to $1200 in donations. THP
Board and I wish to thank you for your participation and
contribution. I am always enthused and rejuvenated
by you continued support and love for the project, we can't do it
without you!
Friends of THP
Another
way The National Holiday Project is financially supported is through
monthly donations made by Friends of The Holiday Project. Supporters
make a monthly contribution and some of the members have been
Friends for quite some time now! I want to acknowledge all of you
and thank you for your continued commitment to THP. In 2007 alone
Friends contributions were $5,000! If anyone is
interested in becoming a Friend of THP, please e-mail me or call at
707-922-5845.
THP Move to California
We stated in the last newsletter that The National Holiday Project had successfully moved from NJ (where I was located for the past 7 years) to the North Bay in California. As most of you know the Holiday Project originated in CA. Our permanent address is:
The Holiday Project
6 Heavenly Way
Mill Valley, CA 94941
Local
Bobby's Corner
Bobby Anderson, our local representative on THP Board, will have a section dedicated to the licensed localities. Any updates or items of interest about your locality should be sent to Bobby at bobbydeeanderson@yahoo.com He would love to hear from you.
I have asked Localities around the country to let us know how their visits went during the holidays. Here are a few shares starting with Sally:
Hello Holiday Project Participants!
Joanne does such a wonderful job preparing this newsletter and emailing it to you that there are many months when I forget about the importance of contributing an article. But this month, I have something important I want to tell all of you. Very simply, it’s a hearty Thank You!
There are two big reasons why I am especially compelled to say it more in January than I might be at other times of the year. To start, the memory of a wonderful December 25th visit is still fresh in my mind. This year was the 26th consecutive year I participated in a Christmas Day visit and the awesome power of what we do has not diminished one bit!
The second reason is because of the amazing generosity of everyone who contributed in 2007, either through the Friends Program or during our Annual Appeal. As I looked at your names, I could picture almost every one of you. I am so impressed that so many of you have continued your support for so many years. For a few, it has been for even longer than my quarter century!
As I think about the year ahead, I look forward to seeing some of you in person, and exchanging emails with others. I look forward to going on several visits and contributing whatever I can to support my locality and our national organization. I also think about those who are no longer with us and about those who are now living in institutions. I am honored to be with you, as a part of the group of people who continue to make a difference in people’s lives.
Sally Cooney Anderson
Chairman
THP Houston
Happy New Year!
Here's a little info about our Holiday project holiday season activities:
We had 266 volunteers participate in our Holiday Project visiting on Christmas Day. (This is our highest Christmas number for the 12 years I'm been overseeing the Houston-area edition of the Holiday Project. Our previous best was 218.) We sent teams to 19 facilities-- the VA Hospital (3 units there) and 19 nursing homes and assisted-living centers. The collective census of the places we visited was 2327 persons, but this is a somewhat exaggerated number since a significant number of nursing home & assisted living residents spend Christmas with family.
On Thanksgiving Day we had a total of 151 volunteers. Ten nursing homes and assisted living facilities, with a collective resident census of 1171, were visited. This approached, but did not quite beat, our record for Thanksgiving.
All of our visits involve volunteers taking cookies and handmade greeting cards to the people they visit. At Christmas, we add the extra little dimension of having each visit-team do some caroling during their visit.
I talk of "records" but we're not really too concerned about such things as long as our numbers are generally good. Our biggest problem is that we don't have staging locations big enough to accommodate numbers much bigger than we get. (Currently we work out of two such staging locations, one in southwest-central Houston, the other in northwest Houston.) Our second biggest problem is that for our high-numbers dates, particularly Thanksgiving and Christmas, a great many of the volunteers "sign up" over the last few days before the event (e.g., Christmas Eve); this makes matching visit-facilities to the projected volunteer turnout a rather dicey business.
Wishing you a wonderful 2008,
Walter R. Black, Ph.D.
Recruitment Director
Volunteer Houston
Team Leader THP NJ
We visited Kessler Rehabilitation Institute in West Orange, New Jersey. This facility recently opened a new wing which tripled their amount of patients.
We had 20 people show up on Christmas morning and what is usually a one hour visit turned into a 2.5 hour visit due to the new wing! We visited with 70 patients who are recovering from various hip, knee, hand, wrist injuries and replacements.
Next year we are considering dividing the group into two so we can cover the facility more efficiently.
Thanks.
John W Ludgate
Team Leader Kessler Institute
Hi Everone,
We had 4 visits in December, up from 1 in 2006. 2 in Manhattan, 1 in Queens, and 1 on Long Island. Total of 73 volunteers visiting. Virtually all reported having a great, impactful time.
Several indicated they would follow up with specific residents they intend to visit regularly.
I intend to build a team in 2008, to give away significant "pieces" of the job.
Love - David Sauberman
Hi Everyone,,
The DE Valley Holiday did 2 visits during the holiday season. In November we visited the Veteran's Hospital in Wilmington DE. where there were 90 residents. In December we visited The Kutz Home in Clamant, DE and did a Chanukah visit where there were 100 residents. At both visits we did a sing-a-long and gave out stuffed animals.
THP of National Capital Area
Happy New Year to all Holiday Project volunteers!! On behalf of the Holiday Project of the National Capital Area, I want to thank each of you for making the 2007 holiday season a success!! Thanks in part to favorable news coverage on News 4, we were able to attract a record number of volunteers this year. Over 500 volunteers visited with nearly 5,000 patients at thirty-five different locations throughout the metropolitan Washington, DC area. For those of you who missed seeing our story on News 4, you can view it by following the link from our website, www.holidayproject.org.
2007 was an extremely busy and successful year for The Holiday Porject. In addition to attracting a record number of volunteers, we managed a successful furndraising venture. This year’s Jazz for Peace concert raised nearly $1,500 towards the costs of next year’s operations. A big thank you goes to our intern, Shanna Gidwani, for making this year’s concert such a success!!
Our first visit of 2008 has been scheduled for Saturday, February 9, from 2:00 – 4:00 pm at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, 2700 Martin Luther King Avenue, SE, Washington, DC.
Robin Wiley
President
As the Board member representing local chapters, please contact me for assistance from either our local chapter or the National Board. Also if you have any comments or suggestions to put in my column, I am at 540-371-7484 or bobbydeeanderson@yahoo.com Let's keep "growing" The Holiday Project!!
Warmest Regards,
Bobby Anderson
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Other News |
THP Conference Meeting
Last April, Sally Cooney sent a letter to all our THP volunteers to see if there would be an interest in having a get
together to examine the future of the National Holiday Project.
We decided to have the conference/Reunion either be the second or
third weekend in May. I am looking at having the conference in Mill
Valley or the Napa
Valley area of CA. As soon as all the details are finalized, I will
send out an invitation to see who is coming. I am planning on having
trips to San Francisco, Napa Valley Wineries and other fun times we
can do together during the weekend. Sally Cooney, our Board
Chairperson, will facilitate the conference. We need at least 30
members to participate to make the conference feasible.
We are looking for speakers to talk at the conference to add to the festivities, Elizabeth Russell has graciously volunteering to speak and talk about her book "Reading Under the Covers" If anyone else is interested, please e-mail me It will be great fun to get together, both for discussions on THP and reuniting as friends.
THP Tribute
Dear friends,
As you have heard, our dear Charlene left us in September 2007
after a long and courageous fight against cancer. A funeral mass for
Charlene was held at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.
She took over as LA chairperson in 1980 For The
Holiday Project and was active in the project for many years. She was
also the Western Regional chairperson. Charlene also enrolled Bev
Conner, kicking and screaming as LA chairperson and the rest is history
for Bev. She was also very involved with the hunger project.
Thank you for your love and support for Charlene
Colby Haines
THP Adopt-A-Home Project
for Schools and other Community Organizations
The Holiday Project Adopt-A-Home Project was designed to support those who work with adolescents either in a school environment or group organization, encouraging them to begin to volunteer at an early age. By using the easy-to-follow check-list, a busy educator, group leader or even kids, can complete all the tasks of the project.
This year We plan on focusing on the Adopt-A-Home program and introducing it to California Middle & High Schools. I have a contact with a High School community service club from the North California THP and I am inviting them to be part of a pilot program and solicit other schools in the area to get involved .If you know of a High School or Middle School that has a community service club and wants to get involved, please e-mail me and let me know. I would love to match up a school with a team leader in all our localities doing visits!
Volunteer Match
VolunteerMatch's Nonprofit Site
www.volunteermatch.org
Remember there are other holidays throughout the year and Volunteer Match is the way to go to recruit new volunteers for your THP Visits. Please gather the information on the institutions you will be visiting on those holidays and be sure to e-mail them to me. The earlier you can get the information to me, the more volunteers you can capture, You can also solicit for volunteers to support you in getting your Locality in gear for the year. Their site is VolunteerMatch's Nonprofit Site www.volunteermatch.org
In 2007 we had 376 referrals from VolunteerMatch by people wanted to do visits. That was up from 263 referrals in 2006. Since 1998, we have had over 3, 226 people looking to do visits with The Holiday Project!
Receiving Newsletter
We encourage comments, support, pictures, articles and information on what’s is going on in your Locality. With your support, we can all benefit from each other’s knowledge and spirit, as we get closer to the holidays.
If you know of anyone who would like to be added to this newsletter list, please forward the newsletter to them. (Especially if you know of any 'old-timers' of THP.) Ask them to send me their e-mail address to be put on THP list. If you received this newsletter and are not interested in future copies please e-mail me or contact me at 732-527-0737
Executive Director
The Holiday Project
Phone: (707) 922-5845
E-Mail The Holiday Project
