You can win free rent to a luxe apartment in Cambridge for a year
For a $10 donation.
Four Boston-area companies are teaming up to give away a year of free rent as part of a fundraising campaign for local youth homeless shelter, Y2Y Harvard Square.
A donation of $10 between now and June 1 enters you in the raffle to win a one-bedroom, one-bath Chroma Cambridge apartment, furnished by Wayfair. Eighty percent of the donations will go to the shelter, a student-run nonprofit that provides beds for 22 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 every night. The organization also offers a range of services including meals, legal aid, and mental health care.
Co-director Sam Greenberg said that he’s excited about the awareness the campaign will raise about youth homelessness and how the funds could help them grow their program.
“I think there’s something really powerful about these companies making that kind of statement about the fact that, in a small instance, one family or one person should have free rent for a year and then on a broader level that we should be able to provide free shelter and housing for everybody in this area who doesn’t have it,” Greenberg said.
While the student run organization has a lot of energy and optimism, he said they haven’t had the ability to fundraise in “the traditional fashion.” The campaign raised more than $4,500 in its first 34 hours. As of Friday, the donation total was over $7,400.
Co-director Sarah Rosenkrantz said she hopes as people stop and think about what it would mean for them to win a year of free rent that they also think about significance for those who don’t have a home at all.
“For our young people the playing field is definitely not even,” Rosenkrantz said, adding that the donation minimum is only $10, so people in most income brackets have a shot at winning.
The winner will be drawn at random and announced in a livestream by Flutter on June 1.
One of Cambridge Chroma’s model apartments.
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