User:Robin Wiley/sandbox

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The Holiday Project is a national nonprofit organization comprised of thousands of volunteers who visit with thousands more people spending Christmas, Chanukah and other holidays during the year confined to hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions. Each year 1.5 million Americans spend their holidays confined to nursing homes; over two-thirds have no living relatives.

For these Americans, the holidays can be a lonely experience with few opportunities for companionship. At the same time, many other people look for ways to make their holidays more fulfilling -- ways to return themselves to the true spirit of the season. The Holiday Project provides an opportunity that satisfies both these needs.

The first Holiday Project Visit occurred on Christmas Day, 1973 when eight people joined together in San Francisco to visit patients at Laguna Honda Hospital. Afterwards, as the volunteers enjoyed lunch together, they decided, the following year, they would do it again and ask others to join them.

For the next seven years, more and more people, in communities all over the United States joined in what was then called The Holiday Hospital Project.

In 1980, the Board of Directors decided to register as a 501(c)(3) non-profit called The Holiday Project. Participation continued to expand. At the pinnacle of its growth, in the mid-80s, Holiday Project volunteers were organizing Visits in 36 states.

On one Christmas Day, snow fell heavily in New York and some of the Visits had to be canceled. One large psychiatric institution asked The Holiday Project if they could still come, on another day, as their residents had few visitors and rarely received gifts. In February of that year, the first non-December Holiday Project Visit took place, on yet another snowy day, as volunteers took the NYC subway and trudged 1/2 mile through snow, carrying large black plastic garbage bags filled with more than 1,000 gifts. Thus began the tradition of Holiday Project volunteers visiting institutional residents on holidays other than Christmas and Chanukah.

In the late 80’s and throughout the 90’s more and more community groups began organizing visiting programs on their own and individual volunteering in nursing homes and hospitals increased dramatically. The Board of Directors of The Holiday Project decided to transform it’s function from program management and oversight (including statistical counting) to a more open-ended educational organization. Although national management still supported existing Holiday Project Chapters, they gave equal focus to sharing programs and procedures with anyone who wanted information.

Most recently, the Board engaged in another discussion about organizational change. Some people felt that The Holiday Project had, over the past 37 years, achieved it’s goal to ensure that people in institutions were visited on holidays and that volunteers were offered the opportunity to experience contribution. Others felt that without a national organization, the program would not continue to survive and, even though many other organizations now organize Visits, The Holiday Project still plays an important role as a champion for this activity.

The decision was made to not only continue national operations but to redesign the national structure and revitalize the national organization’s role in community growth and local program support.

In this, our 30th year operating as a non profit organization, The Holiday Project remains committed to ensuring that people all over the country, people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and economic, levels have the opportunity to contribute to each other and bridge the gap between generations through our program of volunteers visiting people in institutions.

We give our volunteers an opportunity to contribute to others and we create an opportunity for those we serve to contribute to us.

We bring the spirit of a holiday to people who otherwise would not have a celebration.