This story begins in 2015 when Lillian Koym was four months old. Doctors diagnosed her with a rare and serious heart condition. Specialists at UVA were unable to help, but a cardiologist referred parents Todd and Jen Koym to a hospital more than 500 miles away.
“So we got moved up to Boston and were looking at a very lengthy stay there," she recalls. "A hotel would have been really burdensome financially for our family.”
Fortunately, they discovered a service called Hospitality Homes which could match them with a local host – someone willing to put them up at no cost.
"I realized after we had stayed with so many host families – that it wasn’t just a place to stay. You know our host families were amazing," Koym says. "They cooked for us, they checked in with us. They helped us navigate Boston – all of those little things that would have been added stress on top of needing a place to stay."
They returned to Charlottesville with a healthy baby and a mission – to create a group like Hospitality Homes with coaching from that group and a name of its own.
"My husband actually came up with it, because our daughter is named Lily, and a lily pad is like a soft spot for an animal to land, and a lot of animals use it as a space to breathe and rest, so we were like, ‘That’s it. That’s the one!'"
Lilypad Housing carefully vets applicants and hosts – matching hundreds of families in need with generous locals. Some guests have stayed for months – others just overnight.
"It’s actually super flexible," Koym explains. "Our hosts dictate exactly how they want to host – how many times a year, who they want to host, when they want to host. They can always say no. We want to make it very easy and very sustainable for our hosts."
Volunteers might also cook a meal for a family, help with transportation, care for siblings or make rounds at UVA Children’s Hospital.
"We have a care cart that’s starting soon that will be going around to families in the hospital distributing care items and essential items they might have forgotten, and we do home cooked meals and offer help with transportation and other things."
The group lost much of its momentum during the pandemic, when hosts were afraid to take people in for fear of catching COVID, but with grants from the Manning Family Foundation and a magazine called Charlottesville Family, Koym and her colleagues are rebuilding their stable – providing new people with a chance to experience the joy of giving back.
"Some of our hosts have experienced the difficulty with a spouse or their child or a long NICU stay or a long hospital stay, so they understand the stress of that. Some of our hosts have communicated that they wanted to do it because they wanted to teach their children what it was like to give back in that way, and I think some people work in the hospital and have seen families that are struggling with housing."
And support of all kinds is welcomed. Koym and her family are not able to host while their house is being renovated, but in her spare time Jen is a farmer who brings flowers to visiting families as soon as they begin to bloom.
