If you book a stay with the Hampton Inn & Suites Baltimore Inner Harbor, your money won’t just go toward your vacation — you’ll also be donating to the West Baltimore community.
Through the Best of Baltimore package, which runs until Sept. 6, the hotel will donate 10 percent of room revenue to the food bank at Saint Gregory the Great Church on N. Gilmor Street in Sandtown-Winchester. During that time, the hotel will also sponsor a food drive, collecting donations from staff, residents and guests.
The fundraiser and collection are an effort from the hotel management to give back to the community most affected by the unrest in April, said general manager William Hartman.
“Though the immediate area around the hotel has been unaffected, that is not the case with all of Baltimore,” Hartman said. “The people who could afford it least were hit the hardest.”
Suzanne Shoap, the hotel’s sales and marketing director, first suggested the fundraiser. She had donated money, school supplies and food to Saint Gregory the Great through her own church in Crofton in past years. Despite these donations, she said she had never made a personal connection to the parish.
During the civil unrest in April, that changed.
“I reached out to Saint Gregory’s, which was right in the heart of where all the things were happening,” Shoap said. “I just knew that we had to do something to help.”
To Hartman’s knowledge, the hotel has never before hosted such a fundraiser or food drive, he said, but Shoap hopes that their connection with West Baltimore continues.
“In the two years I’ve been here, there hasn’t been anything that impacted us to this point, where we felt we really needed to do something,” Hartman said. “It’s a good opportunity for us to give back, raise money and encourage donations.”
Best of Baltimore package rooms start at $129 a night, compared to what Hartman said was typically a higher summer rate. The package deal includes accommodations, breakfast and Wi-Fi, plus On the Run breakfast bags Monday through Friday and a Baltimore’s Best goodie bag upon arrival, stuffed with local snacks including Berger cookies and Goetze’s Caramels.
