Harvard Extension students, alumni, and friends (Harvard students from other schools, PBHA family, HSHS supporters, and the global community) - thank you for taking part in the HESA + PBHA Supply Drive benefiting the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. Below you will find multiple ways to give to, support, and uplift the unhoused community of Harvard Square. Through donations and the generosity of donors like you, the HSHS (a fully student-run shelter) can continue to serve the community for years to come. We are grateful for your gifts and we send you warm thoughts this season.
Thank you,
Kody Christiansen ‘23 [HESA Events + Public Service Committee Chair | PBHA+HSHS Volunteer]
Maleen Fischer ‘22 [HESA Director of Events | Harvard’s Global Day of Service Team Leader]
*Big thanks to HESA’s Ghadi Sebaali and Andrea Stull for their amazing teamwork!
Please click below on your mode of donation
In-Person Supply Drive at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter
https://hesa.extension.harvard.edu/person-supplies-drive
Global Online Supply Drive
https://hesa.extension.harvard.edu/online-supplies-drive
Donor Thank You Celebration
https://hesa.extension.harvard.edu/person-donation
Join us for some hot cocoa, speakers and swag either in person at PBHA One Harvard Yard (The Parlor Room) or online at http://bit.ly/HESAthankyou
ABOUT HESA | Harvard Extension Student Association
https://hesa.extension.harvard.edu/
The Harvard Extension Student Association (HESA) is the governing organization that represents all Harvard Extension School students. HESA is responsible for advocating on behalf of graduate and undergraduate HES students before the Extension school's central administrators. HESA represents the students interest: whether by organizing events, communicating with Harvard administration, or sharing information and resources.
The HESA Events Committee under the direction of Chair Kody Christiansen, and with co-organizer Maleen Fischer, HESA Director of Events, are focused on bringing community and public service into the forefront of the work HESA does as a student organization. HESA is honored and proud to be working with the Phillips Brooks House Association and the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter on this important event.
ABOUT PBHA | Phillips Brooks House Association
https://pbha.org/
PBHA strives for social justice. As a student-led organization, PBHA mobilizes volunteers in collaboration with Boston and Cambridge partners to address gaps in opportunities and resources. We develop student and community leadership to creatively meet critical needs and advocate for structural change. PBHA seeks to promote social awareness and community involvement at Harvard and beyond.
For more than a century, PBHA has worked to fulfill a dual mission – providing vital experiences for generations of students in service and activism, while simultaneously offering programming throughout Greater Boston that meets stated community needs. Each year, 1,500 student volunteers join with PBHA’s community partners to run more than 80 social service and social action programs.
PBHA programs fall into several categories: adult services, advocacy, afterschool and in-school, health, housing, mentoring, and summer. Although programs range in focus, almost all are community-based and champion on-going, continuous service as opposed to one-day or one-week projects.
ABOUT HSHS | Harvard Square Homeless Shelter
https://hshshelter.org/
1983.New Beginnings. On February 17th, 1983, the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, then called the UniLu Shelter, opened its doors as the first homeless shelter in Harvard Square. In response to the much increased street population, four students from Harvard Divinity School and Harvard College, with the support of University Lutheran Church’s Pastor Fred Reisz, other Harvard Square ministers, and volunteers from the congregation, provided simple meals and sleeping space for about a dozen men and women in University Lutheran’s basement.
Although originally envisioned as an emergency response to a temporary situation, the long-term problem of homelessness remains unsolved and the doors to Harvard Square Homeless Shelter (HSHS) remain open. Every winter, HSHS has provided food, housing, and warmth for more than twenty homeless adults each night during the five coldest months of the year. Although the shelter is located in the basement of the University Lutheran Church and benefits from the generosity of its congregation, its programs and services are all non-religious.
2011. HSHS continues to have the most volunteers of any single organization on campus and to be the only student-run homeless shelter in the nation. We are working to change the latter, through, collaborating with groups of students from the University of Florida at Gainesville, Villanova, and Stanford to help start shelters there.
Today. HSHS is proud to work alongside Y2Y Harvard Square, a student-run homeless shelter for youth 18-24, founded by two HSHS alumni in 2012. Both shelters operate in Harvard Square – united in our missions, structure, and history.