BOSTON, MA – A remarkable room hidden behind an unsuspecting food court in downtown Boston, Longwood Hall is a room that once a year is lovingly transformed into a space that supports patients receiving medical treatment in Boston and their caregivers while honoring the hosts that give them a space to call home during treatment.
“The most unique thing about Hospitality Homes is the people,” says Andrea Lachance, Director of Sales & Marketing at the Hilton Garden Inn Boston/Brookline. “From the first phone call all the way through their entire stay, Hospitality Homes and their team and their host families provide phenomenal care. They treat every family like it’s their own, and it’s so great to see that level of comfort.”
Sara Nochur, a Newton-based Hospitality Homes host, says she and her family have hosted hundreds since 2003. “It’s been a remarkably humbling and rewarding experience at the same time. We have hosted people from Nigeria, from Thailand, from France, all over the US and sometimes even locally that it might be just too much for them to commute,” says Nochur. “Just to be able to share a few days of peoples’ lives when they are really really worried and concerned about people they love, or they themselves might be the patient – and to be able to take one things way from their worry has been just a blessing.”
For LaChance, the opportunity to partner with the Boston-based nonprofit is a win-win. “We are a hotel partner of Hospitality Homes, but our real partnership is in supporting families,” she explains. “We provide discounted rates, comfortable and safe accommodations to help these families
while they’re coming to Boston for medical needs.”
For Virginia-based Ron and Linnea, the opportunity to stay with a host family in Boston meant lifesaving medical care for their son Levi. “Levi was born early,” explains Linnea. “He was born at 24 weeks and initially we were at the NICU with him in Virginia. And after 118 days, he was discharged to hospice and so we were between two decisions: should we just kind of let him live out his the rest of his days and give him the most experiences we can, or should we get a second opinion?” The couple made the decision to drive Levi to Boston Children’s Hospital, where they were able to perform life changing brain surgery on Levi. “Hospitality Homes put us up and gave us the resources we needed because just navigating so many medical complexities and then having to worry about, ‘where are we gonna stay? How long are we gonna be here?’ It was just such a Godsend for
us.”
The best way to describe Hospitality Homes? Ron says, “It felt like family members who always had your back, but you know, you’d just never met them before.”
To learn more about Hospitality Homes, visit their website.
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Emmalyn Reid 