Meet Christopher Suchanek of Project Boon in Inland

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Suchanek.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Christopher. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am the co-founder of Project Boon. 10-15 years ago, my wife (Ana Karina Suchanek) and I started our for profit businesses (Hitch Burger and Firm Media). After several years of building these businesses, we quickly realized there was more to life than building businesses and generating income. I had also been volunteering for LA based organizations at holiday events as a way to give back. One Thanksgiving we decided to use our resources at Hitch Burger to prep turkeys and pass them out to shelters and recovery homes. I believe we started with 15 turkeys that year. We drove the turkeys down to Skid Row and quickly realized that our 15 turkey donation was never going to be enough to make a dent in the need so we decided to organize a Thanksgiving event and bring on community members as strategic partners.

That year we hosted the 1st annual Eat & Be Well in Fontana, CA and served warm meals to 2500 people, provided things like haircuts, live entertainment and flu shots. Fast forward a few handful of years and we are now hosting 11 holiday based events in both Mexico and the United States. The essence of the word Boon is the merit one receives for doing a good deed. With that being said Project Boon was created to provide volunteer opportunities in our community. We dont believe that need or lack can be eradicated but we do believe that we can create volunteer opportunities that are at some levels contagious and make a dent in the need of underserved families in our community.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road… For some reason, I thought that we would start a nonprofit that focused on volunteer opportunities and creating an outlet for people who wanted to give back to their community and we would all change the world one warm meal, backpack or health exam at a time. Boy was I wrong… What I found was a large pool of nonprofits that didn’t necessarily pull on the same end of the rope when it comes to helping others. It helped me to see that whether we are talking faith based organizations or regular everyday nonprofits I found groups of people fighting for their piece of the pie. Once we figured this out we decided to do our best to build strategic partners in the community (WE are smarter than me).

Rather than build and invest in a series of one day events that we struggled to create in a vacuum we looked for other nonprofits that had been hosting events and brought our resources to the table to make them better. As a result of this we found great organizations like Inland Valley Recovery Services, Community Health Systems Inc and Manos Indígenas Solidarias (in Mexico) that have the same or similar goals and we started pulling on the end of the rope that they had already started pulling on. This lead to much larger holiday based events that had the capacity to serve and support a lot more of the people in our communities.

Project Boon – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from others?
We love what we do at Project Boon. We have the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others and we don’t do it alone. For the better part of the last decade we have developed a series of holiday based events in two countries that strategically partner with over 25 for profit, nonprofit, county and government agencies to provide warm meals, health exams, haircuts, flu shots, backpacks, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, live entertainment and much more to underserved families in our communities. We have developed a robust list of over 700 committed volunteers and donors that pull together to make it all happen. We could not be more proud of the work we do here at Project Boon and we look forward to what the future holds!

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment for me would have to be the day I was standing at the very first Eat & Be Well (Thanksgiving event) where we served 2500 traditional Thanksgiving meals, attracted over 500 volunteers and strategically partnered with 50 heath service providers that offered much needed social services. It was that day that I realized that two for-profit owners armed with a desire to give back, some resources and a simple idea could make a difference in the world. I will forever be grateful for the opportunities we have been given.

Contact Info:

• Address: 10789 Arrow Route #2, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730
• Website: www.projectboon.org
• Phone: (951) 305-3038
• Email: info@projectboon.org
• Instagram: @projectboon
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectboonevents
• Other: www.projectboon.org/amazonsmile

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