Today is an extra special World Gratitude Day.
This past Friday, our team led an epic day of Clubhouse Builds with our friends at Beemok Hospitality Collection at American Gardens. Designed by BHC as a place for Charleston residents and visitors to pause, gather and connect, American Gardens felt like an especially fitting setting for a day centered around community and shared humanity.
Together, we built not one, but FIVE Clubhouses for deserving warriors and their families.
Diagnosed with B-cell ALL leukemia in June 2024, we had already heard about four year old Kyra’s strength, resilience and big personality before we met her. All were on full display as she helped her Crew hammer away and put the final touches on her new playhouse.
We also may have found a budding artist in five year old Anya, whose imagination and creativity were hard at work over by the art table. While her Crew was putting up the frames, she was already making interior design decisions!
While five year old Ava’s immunosuppression meant she couldn’t join us in person last week, her love for Disney princesses and pastel colors were top of mind for her Clubhouse Crew as they built her a place to play free from worry with her sister Olivia.
It’s incredibly fulfilling to be able to give these deserving kiddos a place where they can play and take their minds off of days that are harder than most adults ever have to experience, but nothing is as rewarding as seeing their reactions. Five year old Ariel beamed with pride and joy when she realized the Clubhouse she was standing in front of was hers. That is everything when you know what she’s been through after her diagnosis and treatment for neuroblastoma.
The BHC team’s work also included a first for our Clubhouse Build program. One of the Clubhouses was specially customized for our friends at Emerson Rose Heart Foundation’s new Heart House, located in Mount Pleasant. Jason and Susan Smith lost their daughter Emerson Rose at 2 1/2 months old in 2011 to a complex congenital heart defect, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. In her memory, the Smith family created a place that provides a true home away from home for other families whose children must remain in cardiac care at MUSC. Emerson Rose’s Clubhouse will serve as a place to play for several heart warriors in the coming years, and we can’t imagine a better way for her legacy to live on.
Today, we’re especially grateful for partners like Beemok Hospitality Collection, whose commitment to giving back creates opportunities for truly meaningful work. Together, BHC put in the work alongside families who have been through so much, and we were able to create an experience that brought BHC’s people, purpose and community impact together under one “roof”.
It’s a privilege to help our partners turn what they value into experiences their teams can feel, participate in and carry forward long after the day is over.
That’s a whole lot to be grateful for!
