The Holiday Project is a non-profit that organizes visits to nursing homes, hospitals, and other residential institutions. Greeting Cards are also made and sent to residents at visits.
1.The Holiday Project’s Valentine’s Saturday Visit
Grace Care Center of Cypress
9602 Huffmeister Rd
Houston, Texas 77095
Date of Visit: Saturday, February 9, 2019
Contact Person: Donna Martin
For more information and other visit opportunities, please check out here.
2.If you would like to make Greeting cards:
If you’d like to donate Holiday Cards, *you may drop them off, or mail them to:
Grace Care Center of Cypress
Attn: Donna Martin/The Holiday Project
9602 Huffmeister Rd
Houston, Texas 77095
*You can also sign up for a scheduled visit if you want to personally pass out the cards you made to nursing home residents…..
Cards Needed for the Following Holidays in 2019:
(any amount of cards donated by an individual volunteer or group is appreciated!)
2019 Visit Dates and preferred deadline for cards:
Valentines Sat Feb 9
(Cards by Feb 1)
Easter Sat April 20
(Cards by April 12)
Mother’s Day Sat May 11
(Cards by May 8)
Fathers Day Sat June 15
(Cards by June 7)
Grandparents Day Sat Sept 7
(Cards by Aug 30)
Thanksgiving Thursday Nov 28
(Cards by Nov 22)
Christmas Day Wednesday Dec 25
(Cards by Dec 14)
2019 Valentine’s Day – need approx. 500 cards
2019 Easter – need approx. 500 cards
2019 Mother’s Day – need approx. 500 cards
2019 Father’s Day – need approx. 500 cards
2019 Grandparent’s Day – need approx. 500 cards
2019Thanksgiving Day – need approx. 2,000 cards
2019 Christmas Day – need approx. 2,000 cards
Card Guidelines:
In order to encourage creativity, very few guidelines are imposed on the making of Holiday Project handmade greeting cards. The cards may be almost any size, and the media used can be as simple as colored markers available at almost any grocery or drug store. Some people use combinations of media such as markers, rubber stamps, images cut from used or surplus store-bought greeting cards, cut-out computer-generated images, pasted bits of ribbon or felt, etc.
Here are a few general suggestions on other matters:
•Ideally the cards should be able to stand up if placed on a table, nightstand, etc.
•Please don’t use glitter-on-glue. The glitter tends to get all over everything. However, pre-mixed “Glitter Glue” (such as is made by Crayola) is fine.
•Sentiments that imply that the recipients’ circumstances are less than ideal (e.g., “Cheer Up!”, “You are not forgotten”, etc.) should be avoided.
•Greetings should be generic so that they can be appropriate to almost anyone. (For example, a Christmas card that says “Merry Christmas” on the front and “Wishing you all the joy of the season” or other similar sayings that are creative and/or festive inside would be fine. Similarly, a Mother’s Day card that says “Happy Mother’s Day” and “The Best to You on this Special Day” would be fine, but sentiments such as “To a Great Mom” should be avoided, since not everyone visited in connection with Mother’s Day has been a mother.)
•Please don’t enclose or attach candy to the cards. (Logistically speaking, it’s usually not practical for the visit-volunteers to separate out such cards and determine which recipients are permitted to have candy.)
•It’s preferable that the cards not be in envelopes. (Some of the recipients suffer from advanced arthritis or other conditions that make the simple act of removing a card from an envelope quite difficult.)
•Please don’t put a date on the cards. (We occasionally have a surplus of cards for a given occasion, in which case we simply pack up the excess cards and use them for the same holiday the next year.)
•Cards should be signed by the persons making them. Any signature should probably include just the signer’s first name or first names of group…
Please Please Please do not put anything about the state of a residents health …such as I hope you get well soon or hope your health improves…the residents aren’t all sick that live in long term care and for the short term rehab patients in skilled nursing facilities it is just too hard for volunteers to know who is in a facility for long term residence or short term rehab stay, so we just avoid anything health related!!
Questions – email Donna Martin at: theholidayprojecthouston@yahoo.co
Want to volunteer?: Please contact Donna Martin at theholidayprojecthouston@yahoo.com or call 832-515-3862.
Facebook: The Holiday Project (General) Facebook Page
Website: The Holiday Project Volunteer Opportunities Website
weekend volunteering 