Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s Tallahassee chapter must find at least 1,500 square feet of temporary storage space by August 31. If they don’t, they could be forced to shut down and pause its mission of ensuring no kid sleeps on the floor in the Big Bend area.
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Tallahassee nonprofit Sleep in Heavenly Peace urgently seeks storage space to keep building beds for kids
The organization, which has hosted more than 100 bed builds and delivers at least 600 beds per year, has been storing, building, and delivering beds from a private home.
But with the property owners planning to renovate, the chapter must vacate by the end of the month.
Chapter President John Cousins said the arrangement was always meant to be temporary. The chapter just hoped it would last longer.
“We got nine months out of it, so it’s been very nice to be able to do that. And we knew this time was coming up. We’ve just been unable to find square footage of about 1,500 square feet to be able to store things and move things around accordingly,” Cousins said.
Cousins said finding a centralized location is critical to keeping volunteers engaged and operations running.
“To have a place, again, to have everything stored in one location is huge for our volunteers. It enables more people to be involved to help volunteer because they don’t want to drive from here to the other side of town to go pick up another material,” Cousins said.
Without a solution, Cousins warned the chapter could be forced to scale back or stop entirely.
“We will have to curtail what we’re building and possibly shut down for a while. Because, again, economy’s a scale,” Cousins said.
Jim Flury, the missions director at Killearn Methodist Church, says his congregation sponsors an annual bed build every April, giving members a hands-on opportunity to serve families in need.
He described the impact of those builds as immediate and deeply personal.
“Nothing compares to walking in there, putting that bed together, and, I tell people this all the time, I mean, the smile, it will just blow you away. The kids are so excited. In some cases, they’ve never had a bed of their own,” Flury said.
Flury said a shutdown would be a serious blow to the community.
“It would be devastating. I mean, there’s no other word for it if it had to shut down, so we’re praying hard that a solution is found,” Flury said.
Cousins says the chapter has a few options in mind but has not yet secured a space.
Long term, the organization hopes to find a permanent facility between 6,000 and 8,000 square feet.
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