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. 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 volunteers if they could 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 the number of individuals 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, the focus shifted to sharing programs and procedures with anyone who wanted information. In this, our 49th 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 share the spirit of a holiday though our program of volunteers visiting people in institutions.
