United Through H.O.P.E.

09/01/2026

Nerfies in Plano was a blast for the United Through Hope members because they spent two hours getting sweaty dodging nerf bullets, hiding out, and doing calculated sneak attacks in the backlight setting. Gotta say impressed on how they all handled any sting from the nerf bullets. Not one of the members complained and all kept their cool even when other patrons shot them way too close.

Great collaboration, teamwork, and bonding experience. Excellent way to focus on their social skills and communication goals.

They also enjoyed wearing themselves out on the giant inflatable obstacle courses. Only one with his very long legs managed to “bounce” successfully across all the balls.

Can’t forget to give a shout out to the amazing staff at Nerfies. The young high school/early college aged staff were very helpful and polite. Even kept their cool when a patron acted like an ultimate “Karen” very loudly.

08/30/2026

The United Through Hope members had a blast riding the mechanical bull at 11Max. Watching them try to hang on was hilarious. Some of the positions they got themselves into was a hoot! The record stood at 43 seconds after multiple attempts to break it.

One of the cool things about the mechanical bull was even the most timid UTH members got to give it a try because it had a super slow mode too!

But it also had a super fast mood which the cockiest of the members thought they’d easily beat. Nope! And their bragging was put to a quick halt 😂

08/29/2026

Excited! Just received our first North Texas Giving Day donation of this 20 day cycle that runs from 8/27/26-9/17/26!

Thank you! The donation also entered United Through Hope into an early bird type drawing that could potentially give UTH more needed funds!

08/27/2026

Today marks the opening day of the official North Texas Giving Day cycle and United Through Hope is blessed to be among the nonprofits benefitting. The giving cycle runs from today 8/27/26 through 9/17/26 and all donations go directly to UTH!

Your generosity supports the social growth of children, teens, and adults in the DFW area! We hope we can reach our goal this year!

From the grand opening in 2012 to the present, UTH's reach has grown exponentially over the years offering unique generalizable moments for elementary aged children, teens, and young adults who need social opportunities to learn, develop, and make the all important "socia...

08/24/2026

The teen and young adults clearly had a fantastic time at their Saturday social meetup at the Frisco United Through Hope building. The more experienced pool players took the time to teach pool newbies how to hold the stick to sink the shots. They were all incredibly flexible at not being sticklers for rules, just allowing everyone to have a good time.

During air hockey they often pretended to “die” when they got beat after an extremely close match concluded. Even worked up to 4 discs flying at the same time and trying to score as many as they could but rolling with the “oops I knocked it into my own goal” when it happens.

Fooseball and air hockey both created a lot of egging each other on and running commentary from onlookers as the action spiked up.

Building relationships, building conversations, and building comaradie naturally. That’s what UTH is all about!

08/23/2026

What an unexpected but very thankful surprise it was to open up the United Through Hope email and see a donation of $500 had been placed into the UTH PayPal account from Denton Unitarian Universal Fellowships’s Second Offering. Many thank yous to a group of wonderful souls! Their generosity is greatly appreciated.

08/22/2026

The fooseball, pool, & air hockey tables have now made it from the old Denton site to the Frisco site! Game on for the United Through Hope members for tonight’s social meetup!

08/20/2026

Throw back Thursday to when the United Through Hope members did “sumo bubble ball” at Take Off Adventure Park. It was absolutely hilarious watching them try and move around in those giant bubbles. Even funnier was when they toppled over and had to try and get back up. They eventually decided team work was the way to go both to score goals but also to get up from the ground!

08/19/2026

26 days so far in DFW at 100 degrees or higher and peaking so far at 107 and forecast shows at least 2 more weeks of 100 plus days!

The United Through Hope members spent an afternoon cooling off in the water and deemed the wave pool at Denton Water Works DFW’s best ever wave pool with tons of huge very high rolling waves that appeared be every 10 minutes for several minutes at a time. They jumped in them and into them and even fought against them and barely ever wanted to get out.

Yep that’s where’d I’d be too if I was hanging with my buds outdoors in the summer!

08/18/2026

The United Through Hope members really enjoyed their recent trip to Bubble Planet at Grapevine Mills Mall. For one member he had to navigate a fear of balloons as one of the exhibits had pink filled floating balloons and he was terrified they would pop. The group was supportive to help him move past his fear and near the end of the exhibit he was able to play around with the gold balloons with no problem!

They loved the giant rubber ball room and between that room, the sphere shaped room, and the ball pit they worked consciously on self control and self regulation so they did not break the rules. After 30 minutes in the ball pit UTH staff had to ask them to move to the next room as they could have stayed there all day burying each other in the balls!

They had fun posing for pictures and even Dr. Harrier got in on the goofiness. They giggled in the bubble room as they got covered in floating bubbles. And the VR room turned them into zombies-they literally heard nothing and were startled when the headsets came off!