Thank you 2022 Sponsors!
Category: Uncategorized
May Donations Needed 2022
Happy May! This month’s Donations Needed list got a big update. We asked for a lot of personal supplies like makeup, body wash, and vitamins over the last couple of months, and our donors showed up and showed out! Knocking those off the list meant we could make room for more house oriented needs, like a new broom, a counter organizer for the bathroom (9 residents means we need to be creative with storage space!), and surge protectors to replace some of our older ones.
The Donations Needed list gets tweaked throughout the month and is based off of asks from our residents, things staff or volunteers see a need for, and just things that have maybe seen better days, like our silverware drawer organizer. It takes such a weight off knowing we don’t have to worry about running to the store to get paper towels because we were out, or groceries because some of our residents haven’t received their food stamps yet. It gives staff and volunteers the ability to focus fully on meeting the needs of our residents on a more emotional, mental, personal level. Best of all, it means our residents know they’re supported by their community-the people they pass in the grocery store or meet at the bus stop.
Thank you for your continued support and for giving our ladies a place to call home. We couldn’t do this without you!
Please feel free to shop our Amazon wishlist or your favorite retailer; you can even have your items delivered directly to us so you don’t have to leave home!
If you’d like to gift Hospitality House with a little extra at no cost to you, you can make purchases through smile.amazon.com and select Hospitality House as your chosen organization. Find out more here.
We’re Hiring!
We’re hiring!
If you have a passion for helping homeless women obtain home, health, and hope, check out our job listings on Indeed or click the links below!
*We recognize that individuals’ experiences with oppression based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and beyond – can disproportionately factor into homelessness. We believe our residents are best supported when our staff has an intersectional lens. This is why we strongly encourage applications from people of color, women, LGBTQ individuals, and other marginalized community members.*
What Remains
2021 Volunteer Appreciation Lunch
Join us for our 2021 Volunteer Appreciation Lunch! Hospitality House would like to thank our volunteers for all their hard work and support throughout the last year with a Covid-19 friendly drive-thru style soup party. We’ll be celebrating with music, announcing our 2021 volunteer of the year, and sharing some insight into our program and shelter life-made possible by our generous volunteers!
Walk for the Women 2021
We invite you to WALK with us or on your own!
Please register at our event website: auctria.events/Walk4theWomen
LIVE WALK @ ST. FRANCIS CHURCH
1. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, September 18th
St. Francis Church 15216 21st Ave. S.W.
2. Stretch and warm up! 3. 10:00 a.m. Ready, Set, Walk!
VIRTUAL EVENT
1. Walk any time between September 17-19.
2. Share your walk photos on the Hospitality House Facebook page!
Tips For Enlisting Personal Sponsors
The key to our success lies not only in the number of walkers participating, but also in the number of sponsors each walker enlists.
This year we are stepping up our fundraising efforts by challenging each Hospitality House Board Member, Meal Provider Coordinator and Walkers to increase their participation in Walk for the Women by asking people to come alongside them with sponsorships.
MAKE A LIST OF POTENTIAL SPONSORS
Each of us has been blessed with a unique sphere of influence. Family. Friends. High school and college alumni. Co-workers. Neighbors. Maybe you’re on first-name basis with your dentist, mechanic, the owner of a restaurant or shop that you frequent. Ask them to sponsor you. Chances are good they will say yes! But if you never ask, the answer will always be…no.
REACH OUT THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
Many of us use Facebook, Twitter and other social media to routinely share pictures of our travels, our kids and grandkids, what’s up in our lives. Why not set up a Facebook Fundraiser to share “Why You Walk” for the residents of Hospitality House, invite them to join the walk, or sponsor someone who is: YOU!
HOW CAN YOUR SPONSORS REMIT THEIR DONATION?
The easiest way for sponsors to support you is to make an online donation on our Event Website. Simply ask your sponsors to indicate that their donation is in sponsorship of you.
Your sponsors may also write a check to Hospitality House and mail it directly to us. Or they can send a check to you for safe keeping until you schedule a time to drop it off at the House. Our staff will mask up and meet you at your car, socially distancing for your safety.
Walk for the Women Brochure
Washington State Reopening and Mask Policy
Dear Hospitality House community,
Yesterday we were all elated to hear the news about Washington State reopening! After over a year of lockdowns and restrictions, this is a big step forward. Although we have reached a substantial percentage of fully vaccinated residents in the state, the pandemic has not gone away.
Public Health has directed homeless service providers to maintain their mask policies. As a result, Hospitality House will continue to enforce mask-wearing for all visitors, this includes office and overnight volunteers regardless of vaccination status.
Hospitality House works with a vulnerable population of homeless women. Where many of us can social distance and can keep our surroundings clean, the women we work with have less control over their environments and often come from congregate settings where proper mask-wearing and hygiene practices are not always up to standard.
We thank you all for your understanding as we work to protect the women that we serve. We hear time and again how grateful our women are for the staff and volunteers of Hospitality House, and our residents are deeply touched by how they are supported by those who do not even know them.
Thank you again for all of your support, the Hospitality House community is truly amazing.
Sincerely,
Hospitality House Staff
December Donations Needed
Happy Holidays! Christmas is a time for family, loved ones, and gift giving. Hospitality House is getting in the Christmas spirit as well! December 1st is when we hold our annual Christmas decorating party and spruce up the shelter with festive ornaments for Christmas. Christmas time is typically when we receive the bulk of our donations that we use for the remainder of the year. Check out our December Donations Needed List below for some ideas about what to donate:
If you are not leaving the house due to the pandemic, or the cold weather, and prefer to shop from home, you can help us in an equal capacity by ordering from our Amazon wish list: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1BMTT8YXQ8TJI?ref_=wl_share
Meet Peggy Meyer, Volunteer of the Year!
Peggy should probably be named the Volunteer of the Decade because she’s been dedicating her time and energy to Hospitality House for the last ten years.
She first served as a meal provider from Lake Burien Presbyterian Church, then as a meal coordinator, office helper, and overnight “house mother” on the weekends. Peggy has always had her hand up, saying, “I’ll be happy to do that!”
When the Board of Directors invited her to join as a representative of Lake B, she put aside any feelings of inadequacy (she saw herself as a doer not a leader), and eagerly tackled her new assignment with a her infectious “can-do” attitude.
Peggy’s dedication and passion for our mission are unparalleled and we are grateful to have her as part of our community. Her optimistic easy-going manner remind us of a quote by inspirational author, H. Jackson Brown, Jr., who penned, “Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.”
Thank you, Peggy!
The Staff and Board of Directors of Hospitality House
Client Speaker for the Volunteer Luncheon
“I am still somebody who has a voice, my voice matters.”
Jackie’s Story
Jackie came to Hospitality House after a month of being homeless. Jackie had worked as a para-educator in a local school district over for 15 years. Naturally, Jackie was shocked when she heard that her hours had been cut significantly – making rent impossible to pay. Jackie lost her job, her home, and sense of normalcy in everyday life.
Jackie just needed a place to gather herself – a place that she could straighten out her affairs, prioritize her needs and create a plan of action to get her life back on track. Hospitality House is the place where she believed that could happen.
Understanding Jackie’s desires, her Case Manager honed in on Jackie’s priorities: housing and employment. Jackie worked hard to achieve her Case Management goals each week and spent very little time at the shelter as she was always out accomplishing what needed to be done. After having done the leg work, Jackie was challenged to wait for responses back about housing and employment and needed to trust the process that her hard work would pay off. In the meantime, Jackie and her Case Manager decided it would be wise to volunteer some of her free time at the YWCA. Jackie had expressed previous interest in working with them and knew that there were housing opportunities through the YWCA.
Jackie volunteered faithfully a couple times each week, for a few hours each time. It was through this relational networking with the Issaquah YWCA that Jackie connected with Family Village, a housing program that turned out to be a perfect fit. Jackie applied and was accepted into their program.
This year, Jackie is still living in housing provided by the YWCA. Jackie said she is still in contact with the women who were at Hospitality House while she was here. Soon, she will be moving to Washington DC to be with her daughter and plans to home school her granddaughter.