Dysfunction Junkies CARE: When A Bed Becomes Safety, Dignity, And Hope

What if the softest place you know—your bed—didn’t exist? We explore that gut-check and introduce Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a nationwide nonprofit that builds and delivers complete beds so no kid sleeps on the floor in our town. From a single garage project to 311,000+ beds across the United States, this is a story of practical compassion powered by volunteers, lumber, and a clear mission.

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Chapters

• 0:08 Welcome And November Focus
• 0:36 The Value Of A Bed
• 1:27 Meet Sleep In Heavenly Peace
• 2:27 Inside A Community Bed Build
• 3:28 How To Donate Or Volunteer
• 4:43 Personal Story And Holiday Impact
• 5:33 Links And Where To Learn More

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

Welcome to Junkies Care, a special edition of the Dysfunction Junkies Podcast, where we highlight wonderful organizations doing great things. And now, here are your hosts, Chrissy and Carrie. Well I gave you.

SPEAKER_01: 0:24

Hey Junkies, I'm Carrie. And I'm Chrissy. And welcome to Junkies Care. It's November. Yay, November. Come on. Uh Chrissy, did you get a good night's sleep last night?

SPEAKER_02: 0:39

No, I never do.

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

But I do.

SPEAKER_02: 0:42

Yes. You did? Well, it's not, it has uh only to do with the fact that I think too much.

SPEAKER_01: 0:48

Yes, yes, yes. But your bed is comfortable, isn't it? Oh, I look forward to my bed exactly every day. Doesn't everybody love to crawl into bed and get under those covers? There's just something sacred about your bed.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04

Could you imagine not having a bed? No. I know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08

That's a terrible thought, actually.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09

It is. And what's even more terrible is think about children that don't have a bed.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13

That's really bad.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14

It's really bad. And that there are over 157,000 children here in the United States waiting to have a bed to help them sleep at night.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25

I know. But there's a solution. There's a wonderful organization, national organization called Sleep in Heavenly Peace. And that is our junkies care organization for the month of November.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01: 1:39

So Sleep in Heavenly Peace started off in basically someone's garage. Like most charities start off, and they simply it was Christmas time, and there was a family that had some children that needed a bed. And so they built a bed for a family. But then they had extra wood, and they're like, well, what who who else can we make a bed for? And it has now turned into this 501 nonprofit national organization with chapters all across the United States. And their motto is No Kid Sleeps on the Floor in Our Town. And to date, they have given over 311,000 beds to children so that they have a bed to sleep in.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18

That's very impressive and wonderful.

SPEAKER_01: 2:20

It is. Now I personally had the opportunity to help with one of their bed builds. So what they'll do is they'll get with a group or an organization and they'll plan a day and you get like 50 volunteers, and everyone gets together and you build beds. And usually 10 to 20 beds you build in one day. And actually, it only takes a couple hours. It's really amazing. They come in with all their equipment, they make all these stations. So and they bring all the wood in. And your volunteers, you know, you might have somebody sanding this piece of wood or this volunteer drilling a hole for a board or a slat or something on this station. Then you've got other people that are staining the woods. You you dip the wood in this special stain. It's just a process. But within like three or four hours, you have all of these, you know, 20-30 beds ready to go. And then what the organization does is then they'll go out, they have other volunteers that go out and distribute the beds to the applicants that have applied. And once the bed is ready. So it's a really amazing process. So you can help out in many different ways. You can go to their website, Sleep in Heavenly Peace, and you can find a chapter near you if you want to participate in one of these bed builds, or simply if you want to donate. Uh, one bed is$250. A donation will cover one bed, but you can certainly donate less or more. They also sometimes have bedding drives where they will get accepting donations of new bedding, sheets and blankets and pillows, things like that. They don't take use, but they'll take brand new purchases for donations. So there's so many different ways that you can help this organization. And to qualify to be a recipient, you just have to be between the ages of three and 17. They have a very simple application process, and that'll get forwarded to the region near you. But it's amazing the these beds and the in the builds and what this organization does. So I'm really excited that we are going to be talking about them this month and encouraging people to donate and to uh volunteer for them. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_02: 4:29

Yes, it's I'm sure it's very rewarding to participate and actually being able to build one of those beds with with other people. And everybody's focused on providing this for children. It's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01: 4:43

It was just amazing the day that we did this. Oh, it was probably about two summers ago. I I or helped organize this bed build with our Youngstown chapter. And it we it was just it was a great day to see adults, children. I mean, we had people of all ages there helping, and you know, everyone was doing their part, whether they were running a little sander or whether they were helping with a saw or whether you know it was just it was amazing. And to know that you're helping a child to be able to have a bed, and and it's it was just fantastic. So sleep in heavenly peace. If you've never heard of them, definitely go check out their website, see if there's a chapter near you because amazing organization. And especially this time of year with Christmas coming and the holidays, what a special gift that would be for a child to have a bed to sleep in tonight. Very much so. All righty. Well, check us out on our Facebook page. You can learn more about them. Check us out on our website, Dysfunction Junkies Podcast. We'll have all about them. We'll have the links to them and how you can be involved in this great organization.

SPEAKER_02: 5:45

Yes. Thank you, everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 5:47

Bye bye. Bye.