Monday, Jan. 29, 2024
When you support United Way, it multiplies your impact and spreads that support to hundreds of other nonprofits in our community. Your support spreads hope, connection and caring to thousands of people in our region. It allows people to pursue their dreams, to create lasting resiliency and it allows us to support the people who know how to do the work best. Whether thats by providing grants to experts in housing, coordinating enrollment for families to better access quality preschool or by getting hands on with volunteer projects. One of our favorite partner organizations in 2023 was Honoring Our Precious Elders (H.O.P.E.), a growing organization that saw a need and dove straight into solving it.
Hen Truong, founder of H.O.P.E. worked a variety of jobs before the light bulb went off in his head. But since his childhood, he’d been dedicated to helping and honoring the elders in his life.
“In my culture, the older people get the more revered they become. So innately the idea for H.O.P.E. was always baked into my DNA,” said Hen.
His organization brings teams of volunteers, with the help of United Way’s Hands On Greater Portland, to elders’ homes to ensure they have safe, accessible outdoor space.
“I am always focusing on finding opportunities to connect the youth with the elderly. Both groups don’t interact that much naturally, elders are invisible to a young kid, and a young kid is an enigma to an elder."
Hen Truong, Founder of H.O.P.E.
His drive and passion for this work has led to his organization’s rapid growth; H.O.P.E., founded in 2019, initially worked with two elders, now they work with over 400. This growth illustrates the dire need for his work, which does so much more than clean up elders’ yards. Hen believes in the power of community, saying he has seen firsthand how the people he works with have better mental and physical health. But the volunteers who work alongside him also benefit.
“I am always focusing on finding opportunities to connect the youth with the elderly,” Hen said. “Both groups don’t interact that much naturally, elders are invisible to a young kid, and a young kid is an enigma to an elder. But when they do get to work together, it’s magical.”
Hen remembers working with a particular group of middle school students. On the bus to the event site, they were buried in their phones, rolling their eyes at everything the teachers said and just generally rambunctious. But when they got to the elder's house who they were helping, everything changed.
"It was all 'Yes ma'am,' and 'Thank you sir,'" Hen said. "And on the other side of the coin, I had met this elder several times before, she was always low energy and really frail. But when the kids came, I don't know where she got all this energy! She was marching around her property, telling them about this rose bush her and her husband planted when they first got married. They were just feeding off of each other's energy. That's something that's always reminding me that I'm on the right track, trying to get two generations working together in the same space."
Hen immigrated to Portland from Vietnam when he was ten years old, and has been in the area for a good chunk of his life. He attended culinary school and worked in a variety of restaurants, but as he moved up over the years into management, he realized he didn’t get to cook as often as he wanted. He started to think he had reached the top of where he could get in food service, so he wanted to do something new, something that would give back to the community. With zero background in nonprofits or yard care, he realized it would be tough, but he wanted to start growing the seed of an idea that became H.O.P.E.
Hen attributes his passion and caring for elders to his mother and father. As a young kid, he says his father didn't believe in idle time. When his brother and him were goofing off and being unproductive, his father would march them down to an elders house and whatever they needed, whether it was cleaning out their gutters, their garage or caring for their yard, the two boys would begrudgingly help out.
"You know at first my brother and I were grumpy about it, but as we kept doing it we started to enjoy it," Hen said. "We saw how much value it brought to the elders in our neighborhood, and started getting to know them, learning about their life story. Some of them had really interesting stories, about how they were in the Vietnam War, and getting to know them as an individual was enjoyable. And of course we'd get cookies or lemonade."
He deeply believes that all of us should have our heads on a swivel, looking around constantly to see who needs help. And elders are often those who need help, and often too proud to ask for it.
Hen looks forward to continuing to grow, and (hopefully) being able to hire some employees and stop working out of his garage. He wants to bring a volunteer manager on board, someone to work on maintaining the tools and several more project leaders so more projects can happen. He He hopes to grow H.O.P.E. into a nationwide organization.
"I'm inspired by various nonprofits and their genesis, they start in the basement of a church or a couple of people making meals in a home kitchen and then boom, there's Meals on Wheels," Hen said. "I'm hoping my origin story will be following a similar trajectory."
Hands On and H.O.P.E. have a deep and symbiotic relationship, with both groups benefiting from the others ability to thrive.
At its beginning, H.O.P.E. was a nonprofit run on passion but hampered by naivety. Hen himself is quick to admit he had no idea what he was doing. But thanks to his caring, and the constant support of people in his life and the community inspired by his work, he began to learn and build. One story that aptly illustrates this involves his big red International Harvester truck. The thing was close to breaking down, it had thousands of miles on it, and Hen says was near the point of being unsafe to drive. Problem was, this truck (which he calls Penny) was his work truck. It allowed him to bring the tools needed to clean up elders' yards and remove the debris. So he went online and posted in an International Harvester club on Facebook, telling his story and asking for help.
"And lo and behold, there was a guy who answered me and said, 'Hen, I know who you are! You helped my mother-in-law at her house.' He told me to bring the truck over to his house, helped fix it up, bought some parts for it and got it running really well," Hen said. "That's just serendipity, what were the chances of me running into a guy who was connected in this way to my work, who's mother-in-law I'd helped."
"You know at first my brother and I were grumpy about it, but as we kept doing it we started to enjoy it. We saw how much value it brought to the elders in our neighborhood, and started getting to know them, learning about their life story"
Hen Truong, Founder of H.O.P.E.
It's connections like this that make H.O.P.E. special, and one of the many reasons Hands On Greater Portland is dedicated to seeing the organization grow. Our Hands On team is constantly bringing corporate groups, individuals and our own staff here at United Way to help out on these projects. Whether it's clearing fields of blackberries or digging out invasive weeds, we're always there to help Hen do this important work.
"We're a good match! We've done over 10 sessions, really big, big sessions, so I'm hoping we continue to work together," Hen said about Hands On Greater Portland. "It's a win-win-win for everyone."
This story illustrates the impact one person can make, when supported by their community. We hope to continue to support H.O.P.E. and help Hen make a difference in the lives of many more elders. Learn more about Hen's organization here, and be sure to visit the Hands On Greater Portland website to volunteer with Hen or hundreds of other organizations that need you help!
