Flowing Generosity

Last week I got an email from one of our partnering churches asking if we were going to be able to assist flood victims and if we needed any volunteers to help. Since our core clients are folks that are moving out of homelessness shelters, living with HIV/AIDS and fleeing domestic violence situations we don't have the funding to assist people outside of that so we'd have no need for volunteers.

But if they gave us the money to help them then we could. Well they did!!! Enough money to provide mattresses to most of the people affected by the flood. The generosity of others is often overwhelming, inspiring, contagious.

David, who is constantly mindful of others needs, says "But what about the families who've been waiting on beds for months. We have 33 people who've already visited the Furniture Bank this year, but we didn't have beds for them when they came. There wasn't enough supply to meet the demand. They've been waiting for months and months to get what they need. "What do we do about them," David says? "I just don't feel right meeting this immediate need and ignoring our core clients."

And that's the heart of the issue folks. People need assistance whether it's flood season, hurricane season, fire season or they are facing the regular hardships of life. The Furniture Bank sees people in desperate need daily, families, children, individuals. We are mindful of natural disasters because images of damage are filling our television screens and radio stations constantly. We have to really search for the other horrors of life, like the fact if all of the homeless youth were in one city, it would be the seventh largest in the US (StandUp for Kids).


Let's not wait for a natural disaster to help those in need. They are around us always.

Appreciation

Last weekend the Furniture Bank hosted the first volunteer appreciation event. It was exciting to think about all the volunteers we've had help us throughout the last year. We've had groups that worked on building projects like building bases for our table tops, groups that have cleaned our warehouse each month, groups that have hosted Furniture Drives, individuals that work one on one with our clients, volunteer on our trucks and volunteers that have completed projects like creating a new brochure for us, among other things. We even recently had someone call us and express interest in developing a database that we've needed for quite sometime.

When I think about all the volunteer hours people have completed I am amazed. As a small non-profit we really couldn't continue what we do without volunteers.

Over the last month we've had to rely on volunteers in a new and essential way. Each day we need at least one volunteer to work on our donation trucks. Since we've had to discontinue two donation crew paid positions it's essential that we get volunteers or else we can't keep collecting enough furniture to serve our clients.

There aren't enough words for the gratitude we have for all the volunteer help we receive.