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Family
Engagement Program

Two smiling children with face paint hold up decorated photos outdoors in a city setting.

Creating joy and fostering connection

People Serving People’s Family Engagement Program offers stress relief, community building, and meaning-making opportunities for families at our Downtown Shelter through entertaining and enriching family activities. It is another way we support shelter guests as whole people who deserve to have a voice in the community and joy in their lives.

Support our program

Our monthly programs

A woman and two children play a card game at a table, with board games and drinks visible in the background.

Family activity nights

Families gather once a month for a different activity (e.g., movie night, Bingo) to enjoy together and with other parents and children staying at our Downtown Shelter.

A table filled with various board games, including Scrabble, Clue, Scattergories, and Battleship.

Game nights

One of our most popular family programs, our Downtown Shelter families gather in our Dining Room with board games, puzzles, building blocks, and more.

A birthday table with gifts, party hats, cupcakes with candles, and colorful balloon-themed decorations.

Children’s birthday parties

We gather to celebrate our youngest guests up to age 17 who celebrate a birthday in the month. All guests are welcome. This event is made possible by The Birthday Party Project.

A Native American dancer in regalia performs outdoors as two men play hand drums; a crowd watches nearby.

Cultural heritage celebrations

We celebrate the cultural heritage of our shelter guests—nearly 93% of whom identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color—with three large celebrations each year. We invite the families staying at one of our two shelters, as well as families of children enrolled at our Early Learning Center Main Site, to our three annual cultural celebrations:

  • American Indian Heritage Day (May)
  • Juneteenth Celebration Day (June)
  • Latino Heritage Celebration Day (September)

We hold these celebrations in the parking lot of our Downtown Shelter, where our staff, generous community partners, and volunteers provide entertainment, food, family activities, information booths, and a lot of joy, happiness, and community connection.

Smiling child holding a pink backpack, surrounded by other children with backpacks indoors.

Seasonal and holiday-related events

Supporting and celebrating our families means celebrating important holidays like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, ensuring families have what they need to help their children celebrate holidays, and providing our school-age shelter guests with the necessary supplies to start the new school year each fall.

  • Mother’s Day
  • Father’s Day
  • Back-to-School Ice Cream Social Event and Backpack Giveaway
  • Winter Toy Shopping Event
Wall with a sign saying “Looking for stuff to do?” above racks of event flyers and a nearby elevator with a green "5" display.

Other resources for families

We also create a library of free-to-low-cost activities that families can enjoy, on an annual, seasonal, and monthly basis. Additionally, People Serving People collaborates with numerous community partners to deliver services and activities to our guests that we do not have the direct resources to provide.

Our community partners

Community partners caring for families in their community make our programming possible. Discover how our community partners generously donate their time, talent, and resources to support families staying at our Downtown Shelter.

More about our community partners


To understand the crucial role our community partners play in supporting our families by providing resources we lack, we’d like to share two examples of our incredible partners, who care for our guests as whole individuals deserving of vibrant lives.

The Birthday Party Project

Once a month, The Birthday Party Project, a nonprofit organization based in Texas, whose mission is to bring joy to children experiencing homelessness through the magic of a birthday celebration, sends People Serving People everything needed to throw a celebration for all the children who have a birthday that month. They supply the games, crafts, gifts, cakes, and goodie bags, and are always a celebration that our families tell us they appreciate and enjoy immensely.

Hennepin County Library

The Hennepin County Library visits our Downtown Shelter lobby once a month. It sets up a table filled with age-appropriate, culturally relevant books for our youngest readers and their parents. The books are free, and parents and families can keep them and take them when they leave the shelter. They also do the same at our annual cultural heritage celebrations and are a family favorite.

Support our family engagement programming

We are always looking for community partners to join us at our annual cultural events, to provide resources for our families by tabling in our lobby, and to bring new programming ideas to our attention. Our guidelines regarding which partners we choose to work with are based on our guests’ needs and wants, and on our organizational values and strategic priorities.

Please email Family Engagement Manager Taylor Gonda at tgonda@peopleservingpeople.org for more information.

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