David's House
David's House provides a home-away-from-home and support for families with children receiving treatment through Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Over the years, the HOPE Foundation and Hypertherm Associates have supported David's House in many ways. Volunteers have helped maintain the grounds, the computer system, act as house assistants and support events while grant funding has helped keep the doors open to thousands of people.
What is David’s House?
David's House is the dream of a young boy, David Cyr, who passed away at the age of five after almost three years of battling acute lymphocytic leukemia. Throughout his time in the hospital, David made friends with the other children receiving treatment for illness and injuries, and always begged his parents to take his new friends’ home with them to his house, his haven from the pain and uncertainty of his condition. David's parents met other parents and caregivers who slept in waiting rooms, cars, anywhere just to be next to their child, and when David passed away in 1984 the dream of taking these entire families home began to become a reality. By using the money in David’s piggy bank as seed money Dick Cyr made his son David’s dream a reality and opened David’s House in 1985.
David’s House provides a home-away-from-home and support for families with children receiving treatment through Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
What do former guests of David’s House say?
“We can’t begin to explain how welcome we felt here. We’ve never felt that way ever, other than in our own home. You bring life and hope to all who want and need it.”
“Thank you for your kindness and deep sympathy through the more difficult days. It made such a wonderful difference for us to be able to come back at the end of the day to such a relaxing and comfortable “home” to regroup before the next day”.
“You made a stressful time so much easier. You truly are doing an amazing service for families from across the country”.
How has the HOPE Foundation contributed to this effort?
HOPE’s mission is to enrich our Associate-owner communities as a catalyst for collaboration and compassion, inspiring solutions for sustainable positive change. The HOPE Foundation funds operating costs to help keep the doors at David’s House open for the thousands of adults and children who turn to them each year for a home away from home. No family is turned away due to their inability to pay.
How have Associates used volunteer time to help David’s House?
Hypertherm Associates have volunteered in different ways. We have hospitality assistants that welcome visiting families, give a tour and orientation to new guests, provide data entry to keep the computer database up to date, as well as Hypertherm teams that cook a nice home cooked meal for the parents and families as they return from visiting their children at the hospital. Annually we have a group of associates fondly known as the “Lab Rats” that do a fall and spring clean-up, so the grounds of David’s House look nice and clean all year round. We even are offering our business and philanthropy expertise by sharing the skills of our associates as committee members and board members.
What can you do?
If you are interested in David’s House volunteer opportunities, you can call them at 603-643-2298. To find out more, go to www.davids-house.org.
