BrandSource members Mark and JoAnne Keen with an allocation for a needy kid.
BrandSource member donates mattresses to worthy cause
By Andy Kriege, YSN
JoAnne Keen had never realized just how many kids in her community go to bed each night … without an actual bed.
So Keen and her husband Mark, co-owners of Frank’s Appliance Center & Sleepsource in Bradley, Ill., joined others in the community to do something about the scores of youngsters forced to sleep on couches, blankets or, in some cases, the floor.
Since 2018 the BrandSource member has been donating mattresses to Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP), a charity that provides beds for children in need.
“We got involved because our hearts went out to the kids in the community who didn’t have a comfortable place to lay their heads at night,” Keen said. Since then, the business has donated over 750 mattresses under an ongoing promotion: Buy any bed for $599 or more and Frank’s will give a twin-size mattress to an SHP chapter in nearby Kankakee or Watseka.
Customers are thrilled when they learn that their purchase is helping needy kids. “For many, it’s one of the deciding factors in their decision to buy from us,” Keen said. “Most are shocked that there are children in our community sleeping on the floor.”
Frank’s messages the charitable buy-one-get-one promotion on Facebook and in a quarterly magazine distributed throughout the area.
As a family-owned business, Frank’s has a deep connection to the community and does its best to give back. “Sure, we provide goods and services that everyone needs, but we feel we need to do a little more than that,” Keen noted. “Some people ask, ‘How you can afford to do all that?’ and I say, ‘How can you afford not to?’ If my grandkids had no place to sleep, I would hope someone would step up and give them one.”
Fully embracing SHP’s motto, “No child sleeps on the floor in my town,” Frank’s also serves as a drop-off location for comforters, pillows and sheets to dress the young recipients’ new beds. This season, “Donations have been so good we had to call SHP right before Thanksgiving to come empty the overflowing donation box,” Keen said.
About Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Like many charities, SHP began in a garage. It was Christmas 2012 when founder Luke Mickelson learned that several children in his town of Twin Falls, Idaho, were sleeping on the floor of their abode. Using his daughter’s bunkbed as a template, he built a few beds and gave them to the family.
Mickelson had some leftover supplies, so he went on Facebook and offered to build another bed for any child without one. What he thought would be a long list of requests turned out to be an outpouring of local folks eager to pitch in. The generosity of these volunteers was so overwhelming that the mission quickly morphed from finding someone who needed a bed to determining how many beds they could provide.
SHP has since grown into a nationwide movement with over 270 chapters across the U.S. and Canada, and to date has made and/or donated more than 100,000 children’s beds.
Visit the Sleep in Heavenly Peace website to learn how you or your company can help needy kids in your community get a good night’s rest.
YSN publisher AVB BrandSource is the nation’s largest merchandising and marketing co-op for independent appliance, mattress, furniture and CE dealers.
