Volunteering for Heading Home

In June, our Boston team volunteered their time at one of the homeless shelters run by Heading Home , a non-profit organisation in Cambridge US. Heading Home provides emergency, transitional and permanent housing, as well as a variety of support services, to low-income homeless and formerly homeless families and individuals in the Boston area.  As the name reflects, they believe that a stable home provides the optimal foundation for people in need to get back on track.  The programs run by Heading Home provide a supported pathway to self-sufficiency that begins with a home, together with critical services such as life skills, financial literacy, and job training.

During the day, the team worked together to complete a variety of tasks at the shelter including:

• Unloading and organising 4,000 pounds of food that had been delivered by the Boston food bank. The shelter staff prepare three meals per day for the residents and this delivery will feed the residents for a month.
• Assembling toiletry kits to be given to residents of the shelter and other families in need, using toiletry items collected from a donations which our team collected in the weeks leading up to the volunteer day
• Assembling six window boxes containing a variety of herbs for the residents to care for, and the shelter staff will use in preparing meals.
• Organising and hanging clothing that had been donated to the shelter for its residents and beneficiaries of the drop-in service.
• Creating inspirational posters to be hung at the Cambridge shelter as well as additional shelters run by Heading Home across Boston.

When asked about the day, the team said that they enjoyed an afternoon of team building while volunteering their time in a way that allowed them to give back to the community. In addition, they plan to maintain a relationship with Heading Home and will continue to offer support in the form of ongoing donations from the team and, hopefully, additional time on-site to support Heading Home’s programs.