9-Year-Old Hailey Fort Builds Shelters for the Homeless and Grows Them Food

Hailey Fort’s Shelter and Garden Project: A Young Volunteer’s Idea

When this story was published in 2016: At 9 years old, Hailey Fort has broken through any ceiling society may have built for her. She spends her time building mobile shelters for people that don't have anywhere to sleep. She works with her mother on a community project.

It began when she was 5. She asked her mother about helping a homeless man in Bremerton, Washington, where they live. Her mother said yes and now they work together to provide shelters to those in need.

"You don’t get rained on and you feel safe and stay dry,” said Hailey. “It just doesn’t seem right that there are homeless people,” she told the local news. “I think everyone should have a place to live.”

In addition to secure, 8x4ft rooms, she grows and delivers them food. (Whether the shelters met local building or camping rules was not assessed.)

Fort's goal for 2016 was to grow 250 lbs of food, build 12 shelters and deliver thousands of toiletries and hygiene items. At the time, supporters could buy supplies from her Amazon ‘wedding registry’ list or give to a GoFundMe campaign; both were 2016 appeals and may no longer be active.

Hailey Fort’s Shelter and Garden Project: A Young Volunteer’s Idea

Watch this video of Hailey and her exploits

(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)

Image Credit

Source: Minds

Follow the idea through its ordinary tasks

The small shelter is the most visible part of the story, but growing food and collecting toiletries point to needs that recur. Those activities also show different ways a child can participate with adult support: a project need not depend on doing the most complicated task alone.

For a local volunteering idea, begin with an organization’s stated needs and the time a family can realistically offer. A reliable contribution can be small. Hailey’s example is most useful as a starting point for that conversation, rather than a promise that a homemade structure by itself resolves the wider difficulties of finding secure housing.

The distinction between a goal and a completed result is worth keeping in view. The quoted amounts of food and number of shelters were ambitions in the 2016 account, not an independently confirmed final tally. A progress record would name what was completed, when it was delivered and who coordinated it. That makes a community project easier to understand and helps future volunteers build on actual work.

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