On Friday, LaunchSquad NY took the afternoon to volunteer at Manhattan’s Hartley House, a well-known community center in Hell’s Kitchen, established over a century ago to provide educational, creative, recreational, civic and social services to its neighbors regardless of their age, income, race, gender or sexual orientation.
Our mission was to spread some holiday cheer and decorate the theater room, which is used for after school and senior programs as well as community fundraising events. Gavin, Mike, Marissa, Kate and Matt decked the halls and were quite jolly, turning the room into a Winter Wonderland full of festive feelings!
One of our most immediate challenges was figuring out how to use the Bowdabra. Mike took the first stab at deciphering this special machine, while Matt and Gavin went to work at stringing icicle lights along the balcony and Kate and Marissa painted banners with well wishes for Christmas, Chanukah, and Kwanzaa. After a while, Mike got frustrated with the Bowdabra and moved on to cutting snowflakes to hang on the balcony. He did an excellent job and streamlined his efforts by making three snowflakes at once!
Throughout the afternoon, we could hear children arriving, excited for after school programming — a few even peered in to get a glimpse of the theater we were decorating. As Hartley House regulars stopped by to check out the decorations, they told us how great it was to see the theater all jazzed up and we were motivated to continue transforming the space for the holidays.
Some members of the group thought this pun should be clearly identified by inserting a dash between ‘Holly’ and ‘Days’.
The LaunchSquad NY team had a blast decorating the Hartley House for the holidays, and during the course of the afternoon we spent a lot of time reminiscing about our own favorite holiday memories. Hopefully our efforts will serve to foster some new lasting holiday memories for the Hartley House community.