Our Beginning
The first Holiday Project visit occurred on Christmas Day, 1972 when eight people joined together in San Francisco to visit patients at Laguna Honda Hospital. Afterwards, as the volunteers enjoyed lunch together, they decided they would do it again the following year and ask others to join them. Back then, institutional living was far different than it is now. Minimal staff were hardly able to keep up with providing life’s basic needs and often, nursing home patients were unattended, psychiatric residents lived in straight jackets, and prisoners got very few visitors and little encouragement to succeed.

Thanks to many, this is no longer the case. Living conditions at long-term care facilities have greatly improved since 1972. A lot is credited to the few who visited and drew attention to abhorrent conditions.

Our Accomplishments
In 1980, The Holiday Project became a nationally recognized non-profit. Through the years, our volunteers have visited with more than a million people. Our motto, “You’re the Gift!”, symbolizes our gratitude to our volunteers who achieved this accomplishment.

This year, The Holiday Project celebrates our 47^th year of organizing visits. When we began, very few people, especially those who did not have family in facilities, visited people who lived in institutions. Sometimes, staff at these facilities did not even want visitors. One volunteer recounts her experience of a Christmas Day visit to Bellevue Hospital in New York City:

“The third time I made the request, the man I spoke to finally gave in but he said, ‘Only if it does not interfere with me watching the football game.’ On Christmas morning, about 20 of us arrived and we were shocked to see guards outside several doors and patients handcuffed to their beds. We saw the staff watching football and we split into small groups and started going room to room with our songs, small gifts (that we were told had to be unwrapped), and big smiles. ‘What’s going on?’ we heard from the TV room as staff members came to see what had caused a commotion. The patients were talking and singing and … smiling! By the end of the visit, the man I had originally spoken to came over to me and apologized for his reluctance. He told me this was the best Christmas he had ever seen at Bellevue and asked us to come again.”

Another extraordinary benefit The Holiday Project provided was an opportunity for everyone who wanted to volunteer to do so. Said one volunteer:

“I had not been in the community very long and I was not living close to my family members. I decided to volunteer but when I called the few places I could think of, I was either told they were not doing anything or they already had enough people to help. Someone told me about The Holiday Project and, to my delight, they welcomed me … and anyone else I wanted to bring with me. They even said I could bring my dog!”

Our Success
The volunteer culture in 2019 has changed as well. People do not need to be encouraged to help. Most people consider it a part of their lives. On any day of the year, there are opportunities to serve. And, a multitude of organizations are coordinating and promoting these opportunities.

Several years ago, The Holiday Project transformed its operations to be more of an educational, and less of an organizational vehicle. We invited the public to go to our website and do what we do, even if they did not want us to let us know. We said, “We are in the business of encouraging people to visit with people in long-term care facilities and we do not need to, nor could we, keep track of where it is happening.”

This year, we have decided to undergo another transformation. We are declaring success and, at the end of 2019, we will conclude our role as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.

We encourage those who want to continue organizing visits to do so, without the structure of a national organization. To this end, several tools will remain.

• Our guidelines are on the AARP Create the Good website as a Do-It-Yourself Project (https://createthegood.aarp.org/volunteer-guides/long-term-care-group-visit.html). 
• Visit organizers are encouraged to use VolunteerMatch, Sign Up Genius or any other online organizing system. We already know this will be happening in the Houston, Texas vicinity.
• Visit organizers may continue using the name “The Holiday Project.”

At the end of December, we will discontinue our website and our internal volunteer management system. In addition, we will donate all remaining funds in our bank account to other organizations who are continuing our legacy of visiting people in institutions. If you have a recommendation, email sallycooneyanderson@yahoo.com.

Thank you to the thousands of people and hundreds of organizations who have supported us during our 47 years. You truly are the Gift! 

Our goal is to make visits to people in institutions an integral part of America’s Holiday Experience. 

Visiting People All Year Long
The Holiday Project organizes visits to people in nursing homes, hospitals and other residential institutions. We give our volunteers an opportunity to contribute to others and we create an opportunity for those we serve to contribute to us.

The Holiday Project is now a Do-It-Yourself Project on Create the Good

Clicking on this link will take you to a page on the AARP Create the Good website.