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Custom Sponsorships

NOAHH specializes in creating custom sponsorship experiences. During regular operations, we can provide a wide variety of special activities during your volunteering experience for sponsorship levels starting at $5,000. Activities can include music, food, guest speakers, and more! NOAHH also offers more than just new home construction. Several neighborhood revitalization options are available.

We are currently in the process of planning a return to hosting volunteers with new guidelines for safety during the pandemic. Please contact Jay Huffstatler for more information at (504) 609-3332 or by email at jayh@habitat-nola.org.

Sponsor-A-Stud

Did you know it takes over 300 studs to build a New Orleans Habitat home? You can sponsor one of these studs and write an inspirational message, paint a design, or place your logo to live in a Habitat home forever for $100 per stud or $1,000 for 12.

Businesses, organizations, schools, restaurants, groups, and churches are encouraged to reserve their study today or schedule a Stud-A-Thon party! Reach out to Jay at jayh@habitat-nola.org or call (504) 609-3332.

Past Custom Sponsorships

These are just a few examples of what NOAHH can do for you:

Marriott volunteers.

Marriott

A Culture of Service

Marriott International has been deeply involved with NOAHH’s work for a number of years. Marriott’s ongoing commitment to providing volunteer hours, in-kind food donations for events, and funding has been integral to NOAHH’s work in building a stronger New Orleans. This involvement is sustained through enthusiastic local leadership, but it’s reflective of the ethos of the company as a whole. Joe Blanchek, general manager of New Orleans Downtown Marriott at the Convention Center and current NOAHH board president, explained this culture on a recent volunteer day: “This week is particularly special for the Marriott Corporation. All of our employees and managers throughout the world are out doing special community projects today. So this is a special day for us. We have people here where this is their first time. We have people here who’ve done it forty times.”

Another Marriott manager added, “We make sure that between all of our associates here in New Orleans we put in thousands of volunteer hours every single year. We try to get out as often as we can to do Habitat projects.”

The Marriott Family of Homeowners

Marriott’s involvement with NOAHH goes beyond just funding and volunteer labor. A fourth of all of NOAHH’s homeowners work in hospitality and service industries, and many of them are Marriott employees, including three who joined NOAHH on site for a recent volunteer build day. In hosting outreach events for their employees, Marriott has worked to educate its employees on the value of homeownership and to connect them to support that can help them achieve that goal.

Celebrating Progress

Marriott employees have taken part in a number of special events beyond standard build days. They’ve participated in many wall-raising ceremonies. The wall raising is an exciting moment in the build process which can include speeches from the future homeowner, local leaders, and NOAHH’s staff and which culminates in volunteers raising and securing the front wall of the home. This is a moment of great joy—the first instance when the future homeowner really sees their dream of homeownership becoming a tangible reality. Most recently, Marriott employees participated in the wall-raising ceremony marking the beginning of a partnership between NOAHH and Covenant House New Orleans designed to provide transitional housing for at-risk youth. They’ve also participated in many home dedication ceremonies, an often-emotional event where a family’s hard work is celebrated as they are given the key to their new home. This presentation is all the more special when the family involved is part of the Marriott team.

GE Volunteer day.

GE Capital Technology Center

Getting Out and Giving Back

In the fall of 2015, hundreds of GE Capital employees descended upon America Street in New Orleans East for a day of service. This was their second year volunteering in New Orleans East with NOAHH, and a third annual day of service is scheduled for 2016. When GE Capital moved their operations to New Orleans, establishing a day of service was a given. Communications Manager Tracy Thomas explained, “GE has a longstanding history of volunteerism, and we have for many, many years at all the different sites where we live and work. So when we moved into New Orleans, we felt the need to get out into the community and give back to the community that’s welcomed us into the family.”

Putting a Crowd to Work

This annual day of service sends 90% of the office’s employees out onto NOAHH’s build sites during a work day. The hundreds of volunteers are distributed across several sites in close proximity to one another and directed by NOAHH construction staff and AmeriCorps members in a variety of tasks.

NOAHH works closely with GE Capital staff in advance of the service date to ensure a smooth and effective event. Portable restroom trailers with running water are delivered. Tents and chairs are set up for a shaded break area, and a separate hospitality tent is arranged with snacks, sunscreen, water, and other useful items. Lunch is delivered and distributed on site. All volunteers are provided with matching GE-branded t-shirts, and GE-branded banners are hung at each worksite. All of these details, small and large, add up to an easy, worry-free, and meaningful event for GE Capital’s large group of volunteers.

Building the Invisible

As GE’s employees wrap up their day of service, they’re able to look over the build sites and see the very real progress they’ve made. Less tangible, but equally important, is the work they’ve accomplished in building their strength as a team. The common goal of serving the community brings together employees from different departments and levels of experience. Executives and entry-level hires find common ground in working together to piece together a flooring system, raise a wall, or dig a foundation. Whatever the task, employees are given a fresh lens through which they see their own strengths and challenges as a member of a collaborative team.

Gap Inc volunteers.

Gap Community Corps

Chosen for Service

The Gap Community Corps has sent volunteers to work with NOAHH every year between 2007 and 2015. In that short period of time, they have worked on 16 different homes in 5 different neighborhoods. Collectively, their efforts have helped to fund 7 homes.

Noel Simpkin and Melina Wyatt, team leaders for Gap Community Corps, describe the volunteer selection process as intensely rigorous. Hundreds of Gap employees from around the world submit applications describing their volunteer efforts in their local communities. Only 25 are chosen. According to Wyatt, “Applicants must demonstrate that their efforts have made a significant impact on their local communities.”

A Culture of Service

Debbie Edwards, the program’s executive sponsor and a Gap vice president, joined the volunteers for the 2015 build. She shared that her participation highlights just how important volunteerism is to her company and how deeply embedded it is in the company’s culture. Edwards explained, “It is a transformative experience to be in New Orleans to mark the 10 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina because Gap employee volunteers starting coming here when the city was at its worst, right after the storm hit.”

In return, the Gap volunteers share a unique experience from which they grow their business skills. Volunteers Biba Hunjan from London and Grace Wang from Shanghai talked about how their efforts here help their communication, leadership, team building, and productivity skills. The long days require they work together, creating a sense of fellowship with their fellow volunteers.

Raising Walls, Changing Lives

Each year, Gap volunteers kick off their volunteer experience with one of our favorite traditions: a wall-raising ceremony. This special event can include speeches from the future homeowner, the leader of the volunteer group, special guests, and NOAHH’s leadership, and the ceremony culminates in volunteers raising and securing the front wall of the home. This is a moment of great joy—the first instance when the future homeowner really sees their dream of homeownership becoming a tangible reality. For Gap volunteers, this ceremony sets the tone for all the sweaty hours that follow. It’s a reminder that the work they’re doing is personal and important, that the resulting home will impact a family for generations.

Special Notes

  1. Commitment to a custom sponsorship agreement includes any standard volunteer fees.
  2. Funds must be received prior to execution of outlined benefits.

If you would like to learn more about house sponsorships, please contact Jay Huffstatler for more information at (504) 609-3332 or by email at jayh@habitat-nola.org.