In immediate danger? Call 911. For crisis support, call or text 988 — free, 24/7.

Find help near you

Who we are

We started with a light and an alarm. We're building a foundation.

Hope in the Dark Project exists because the gap between "we should do something about homelessness" and "someone is unsafe tonight" is measured in hours, not years. We work in that gap.

Mission

A safe community, real protection, and young people who can see it coming.

We provide free personal safety kits, hygiene supplies, and a consistent human presence to people experiencing homelessness. We go into schools to teach young people, especially girls, how to recognise when someone is manipulating them, online or in person. And we walk with the ones it already happened to while they rebuild. Ten percent of every dollar is reserved for teens and women in need.

Those are three parts of one problem. One is immediate: someone sleeping outside tonight with no way to call for help. One is preventable: a girl being worked on by someone who is very good at it and in no hurry. And one is the aftermath — a young woman who was treated as an object long enough that she started believing it. All three are about people who are exposed and under-protected, and all three get the same answer: show up in person, bring something practical, and treat people as capable rather than ruined.

Vision

A country where no one sleeps outside without a light, an alarm, and a name they can call.

We measure progress in kits distributed, routes running, replacement rates, and chapters opened — not in press coverage. When our kits stop being needed in a neighborhood, that's the win.

  • Immediate safety for anyone who asks
  • Hygiene and dignity as a standing baseline
  • A warm handoff into longer-term services
  • Young people who can name a manipulation tactic before it works
  • Survivors who get their life back, not just a case number

Our story

It started with a question nobody could answer.

Ask most people what someone living on the street needs, and you'll hear food, or a shelter bed, or a job. Ask someone who is actually out there, and the first answer is often much simpler and much harder: a way to not get hurt tonight.

Hope in the Dark Project began with that answer. Not a strategic plan, not a grant — just the realization that a personal alarm costs less than a takeout meal, a flashlight costs less than a movie ticket, and neither one is in the hands of the people who need them most.

The first kits were assembled on a kitchen table: an alarm keychain, a light, a whistle, a handful of hygiene supplies, and a card of local numbers printed and cut by hand. They were handed out one at a time, with a conversation attached. People asked for more. Then people asked how to help.

What we learned in those first weeks shaped everything since. That the flashlight matters more than the snack. That women ask for period products before they ask for anything else. That teens will not walk into a building with an intake desk, but will talk to someone on a sidewalk. That coming back the following week matters more than anything you hand over the first time.

So we built an organization around those lessons instead of around an office. Volunteers pack kits. Trained pairs walk routes. Ten percent of every dollar goes to teens and women before anything else is spent. And we publish what works and what doesn't.

What we stand on

Seven values that decide the hard calls.

Values are only real if they cost you something. Each of these has already changed a decision we made.

We believe you

Nobody has to prove their story to get help here. No sobriety requirement, no ID, no intake form, no sermon, and no asking a girl why she stayed. We do not build systems that make people earn the right to be safe.

Consistency beats scale

One route walked every week for a year does more good than ten routes walked once. We grow only as fast as we can keep promises.

Ask, don't assume

Our kit contents change because people tell us to change them. Every quarter we ask what should come out and what should go in, and we publish the answer.

Privacy is protection

We count kits, not people. We do not require names, and we do not share what someone tells us. For people who have been surveilled, ticketed, and moved along, this is not a technicality.

We can't be bought

We need funding and we will say so plainly. But we don't take money that comes with conditions on who we're allowed to help, that wants a person's worst night for its annual report, or that asks us to overstate what a kit does. We would rather run a smaller program than a compromised one.

Say the true thing

We publish what didn't work. We don't use stock photos of strangers' hardship. We don't inflate numbers, and we never present a person's worst night as marketing.

Nothing about them without them

People with lived experience of homelessness sit on our advisory circle, help design the kits, and are paid for that work.

How we work

A field model, not an office model.

We keep overhead low on purpose, because every dollar that stays in the office is a dollar that isn't a flashlight.

What we run ourselves

  • Kit design and sourcing. Bulk buying, quality testing, and a published bill of materials so anyone can audit what we spend.
  • Volunteer training. A four-hour onboarding covering consent, de-escalation, boundaries, overdose response, and route safety.
  • Route logistics. Fixed routes, fixed nights, two-person minimum, check-in and check-out protocol.
  • School safety talks. Curriculum, background-checked facilitators, and the wallet card every student leaves with.
  • The Dignity Fund. Ten percent of every dollar, tracked separately and reported quarterly.

What we refer out

We are deliberately not a housing provider, a clinic, or a case management agency. Pretending otherwise would be dishonest and dangerous. Instead we build referral relationships and make warm handoffs to:

  • Local continuums of care and coordinated entry
  • Domestic violence and sexual assault advocates
  • Street medicine teams and mobile clinics
  • Youth-specific shelters and drop-in centers
  • Legal aid, ID recovery, and benefits enrollment

Partner with us

People

Team, board, and advisory circle.

A small staff, a working board, and an advisory circle of people who have lived this.

Leadership

Founder & Executive Director

Name to be added

Sets program direction, leads kit design, and walks routes weekly. Reachable directly at hello@hopeinthedarkproject.org.

Programs

Director of Outreach

Role open

Owns route planning, volunteer training, and safety protocol. Position opens as chapter count grows.

Board

Board of Directors

Seats being filled

A working board with finance, legal, public health, and lived-experience seats. Board minutes summarized quarterly on the Impact page.

Advisory

Lived Experience Advisory Circle

People who have been unsheltered, compensated for their time, reviewing kit contents, language, and outreach practice before anything ships.

Volunteers

Route leads & build night hosts

The people who make this real. Trained, background-checked where they work with minors, and never sent out alone.

Join them

Join us

We're hiring and recruiting

Board seats, chapter leads, and a first program hire. If you've done this work, we want to hear from you.

Get in touch

A promise we intend to be held to

Not now, not ever.

Some organizations that say they help do not. Some were a front from the beginning. Others started with real intentions and drifted — until the fundraising mattered more than the people, until a survivor's story became a marketing asset, until nobody was left who would say no.

We know that. And we know it is a reason to be suspicious of us, not just of them. A girl deciding whether to write to us has every reason to wonder what we actually want from her.

So: we will not become that. Not now, not ever.

But you should not have to take our word for it, because that is exactly what every organization that went wrong also said. A promise is only worth what it can be checked against, so here is what we have built so that this one can be:

  • No one person controls the money. A working board approves the budget and reviews the finances quarterly. Changing the 10% allocation takes a board supermajority, not a decision by whoever is in charge.
  • The books are public. Income, spending by category, cost per kit, and an open bill of materials down to the price of a whistle. If the numbers ever stop being published, that is your answer.
  • Survivors are never our fundraising. We do not photograph the people we serve, we do not publish their stories, and we do not ask anyone to relive the worst thing that happened to them so we can raise money on it.
  • Nobody is ever alone with a child. Two adults, always. Background checks. Mandatory reporting stated out loud before anyone discloses anything.
  • Complaints route around leadership. Anything involving a board member or the director goes straight to the board chair. Anyone can report anonymously, and retaliation is grounds for removal.
  • We publish what we got wrong. There is a permanent section on our Impact page for our own mistakes, and it only gets longer.

Check the receipts

If we ever break this, say so loudly. Tell our board, tell the state charity regulator, tell the people we serve. An organization that asks to be trusted has to be willing to be checked — and we would rather be caught than be quietly wrong.

Accountability

How to hold us to this.

Published finances, quarterly

Income, spending by category, Dignity Fund balance and disbursements, and cost per kit — posted on the Impact page within 45 days of each quarter's end. Annual filings are posted as soon as they are accepted.

An open bill of materials

Every item in a kit, its unit cost, and its supplier are listed publicly on the Safety Kits page. If you think we're overpaying for something, tell us — several people already have, and they were right.

A written complaint path

Anyone — a kit recipient, a volunteer, a partner — can report a concern about our conduct to hello@hopeinthedarkproject.org or by mail. Reports involving a board member go directly to the board chair. We respond in writing within ten business days.

What we won't do

We won't photograph people in distress for fundraising. We won't sell, rent, or trade donor data. We won't accept funding that requires us to screen recipients by sobriety, faith, immigration status, or gender identity. And we won't claim a safety kit is a substitute for housing.

Believe in the model? Fund the next hundred kits.

Every gift is assigned to a route and reported back. You'll know where your kits went.

Donate now Volunteer with us