This past Valentine’s Day, four pink-clad teenagers brought warmth and energy to Bello Gardens Assisted Living in San Anselmo.
The heartwarming event centered on simple joys: decorating heart-shaped sugar cookies, sharing stories and coloring side-by-side with the seniors.
Events like these make up Hearts and Hands, a youth-led volunteer organization created by 15-year-old Charlotte Hendrey. An Archie Williams High School sophomore and Marin resident, Hendrey has long been dedicated to giving back to her community, specifically in senior homes. “When I was younger, I would visit senior homes in San Francisco around the holidays and play piano for them,” Hendrey recalls.
Though this tradition briefly stopped over the Covid pandemic, the death of her grandfather and great-aunt inspired her to reach out to more local senior homes, specifically assisted living and memory care facilities in her area.
What started as Hendrey solo-volunteering every weekend eventually blossomed into an international volunteer organization.
“I started seeing other youth-led nonprofits on social media, and I realized that I could create my own website,” she recalls. “After I built it, I started posting volunteer opportunities.”
While she had sent emails to several high schools about the volunteer opportunities, she didn’t expect the enthusiasm that would come from students all over Marin. “It got so overbooked that I had to create a waitlist, which was really exciting for me,” she says. The support resulted in around eight other volunteers joining Hendrey every time on her trips to Bello Gardens and Greenwood Assisted Living, which is in San Rafael.
After a few months, Hendrey felt it was time to connect Hearts and Hands with a broader audience. “I started partnering with organizations like Children for Change and Love is the Answer (LITA) to bring in little kids and also other volunteers in Marin,” says Hendrey. “And I learned about something called a chapter system.” In the nonprofit world, a chapter system connects a parent organization to its local branches; the “chapters” often follow organization guidelines but have autonomy in their operation.
Hendrey runs a school chapter at Archie Williams, which helps connect students to volunteer opportunities at local senior homes through the classroom. “We meet once a week at Archie,” explains Malika Kronik, a junior at Archie Williams and a member of Hearts and Hands. “We discuss ideas for volunteering, raise money and sign up for events.”
Through the chapter system, Hendrey was able to connect Hearts and Hands to young people around the world. However, the process to build the 22 chapters currently run was not simple. “I spent around eight months building our chapter system,” she remembers. “Every hour I had outside of school was dedicated to learning more about chapter systems and building my own.”
The task required a fair amount of research into chapters and coding, something she had never worked with before. Today, she directly runs the school chapter inside of Archie Williams and manages the other 21 chapters operating around the world.
Even with the work to get the initial chapters started, it took Hendrey starting an Instagram page dedicated to Hearts and Hands for the organization to gain more widespread awareness.
After creating the account and reaching out to people in Marin to begin chapters, the page began to blow up during her freshman year finals week. “My DMs are just crazy with people from all around the country wanting to start a chapter,” she says. “I literally was studying for my math final while juggling all these chapter requests.”
Hendrey spent her summer hosting one-on-one phone calls and meetings with chapter leaders, helping them start up a branch in their community. She taught these leaders how to cold call senior homes to create their own partnerships and built a line-by-line script for them to follow when calling, an aspect of the organization that is now featured on the Hearts and Hands website. “[Cold calling] was something I also struggled with at the beginning, so it was fun being able to help other people go through the scary process of picking up a phone and calling,” she notes.
The effort Hendrey has put in to connect youth with seniors has had a huge impact, not just on the seniors’ lives but also the volunteers’. While many teens might have started helping out at Hearts and Hands only for the volunteer hours, Kronik shares how “wholesome” the experience has been for her, especially when connecting with the seniors with dementia. “It’s fun to meet the different seniors and be able to come back in multiple weeks and build your relationship with them,” she says. “Even if they don’t fully remember you, they still remember a bit about you. That feels really personal.”
Community is something that Hendrey has worked hard to create from Hearts and Hands. Beyond the volunteering aspect, she has ensured that every chapter leader has the support they need. “I’m always there—even if I’m walking my dog, if one of my chapter leaders calls me and needs help, I’m going to pick up and help them,” she says. “I really love helping people because I went through the exact same process they did.” The aid to chapter leaders and time she has put into the organization has resulted in Hearts and Hands reaching senior homes in 11 states and four countries.
While Hendrey has put in a lot of effort on the chapter side, the real focus for her is spreading joy in senior homes. “A lot of residents don’t get a lot of visitors sometimes, so they can get lonely,” she says. “They really love seeing young faces, so even just showing up and bringing a smile can really make their day.” From sugar cookie decorating to arts-and-crafts projects to holiday parties, her goal is always to help people.
“[Charlotte Hendrey] is very warm, very outgoing and very positive,” says Kronik. “She’s been doing Hearts and Hands for a while, and it’s just kind of crazy to see somebody young making something successful. She’s also really good at speaking with the seniors.” Whether through talking to a senior about a rainbow from her morning drive, helping them decorate their sugar cookie or playing “La Cucaracha” on her phone for a resident, Hendrey’s compassion and drive for others is incredibly evident in her everyday actions.
Through these small, intentional moments, Hendrey transforms a simple visit to a senior home into a profound connection. Her leadership with Hearts and Hands proves that age is not a barrier to empathy, leaving a lasting impact on senior homes around the world.
For more information about Hearts and Hands and their volunteer opportunities, visit their website, hhmarin.org, and their Instagram page, @heartsandhands_nonprofit.
