While offering home-based services, Chase Home continues to serve as primary residence for many youth across the state, which is a fact that has not gone unnoticed among area corporations. Best Buy is the latest corporate entity to offer its support, as it recently offered to absorb half the costs associated with turning one room at Chase Home into an actual movie theater.
“Best Buy approached us and said they would work with us to turn one of our rooms into a movie room,” said Meme Wheeler, executive director at Chase Home. “It’s such an amazing gesture and would mean so much to our kids, as many of them really come from difficult circumstances.”
Noting a movie room would represent a “very obvious improvement” to the look and feel of Chase Home, Wheeler said their unspoken agency mission is to make kids feel as if they reside in a home.
“These kids are court-ordered to live here—it is not exactly easy for many of them to be here,” she said. “A movie room could represent a space for these kids like no other.”
Serving 36% of youth requiring intermediate placement in New Hampshire, Chase Home is one of five intermediate level group homes in the state compared to 22 in Massachusetts. According to Wheeler, the daily residential rate Chase Home receives from the state is half the amount MA group homes receive, which creates “an ongoing fundraising gap.”
“We have very limited options regarding what some may consider ancillary enhancements,” said Chase Home Board President Chris McCarthy. “This movie ro
om, though, would literally transform this space in their minds—and maybe in our minds, too.”
According to Wheeler, kids and staff have already engaged in “painstaking efforts” to
paint the room and perform other tasks in an effort to prepare the space for a possible transformation. In order to take Best Buy up on its offer, she said they must raise an additional $1,500 to match its investment of resources.
“This is an incredible opportunity for Chase Home, and I am just so grateful for Best Buy’s offer of support,” added Wheeler.
To contribute to Chase Home campaign to match Best Buy’s $1,500 offer, visit www.chasehome.org.