Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Volunteer believes there is nothing like having your own bed
When Phyllis Martin helps deliver a free bed to a child in need, she notices two things: The moms are usually crying and the kids are usually ecstatic.
There is nothing like having your own bed – a little nest in which to mend or dream or nap. That’s what the organization Sleep in Heavenly Peace is all about: making free beds for kids in need.
The Hartselle chapter of the organization builds and provides beds – plus a new mattress and bedding – for children in Morgan, Lawrence and Cullman counties.
“There are so many kids who don’t have a bed,” said chapter president John Jackson of Hartselle. “They are sleeping on the floor or in chairs or on couches, and sometimes with a sibling or parent because that’s all they have.” Having a bed is essential to good rest, Jackson believes.
“What’s the first thing you want to do when you are sick? Lay down in your bed. When you don’t have a bed, you may not be able to go to bed when you are sick because your bed is the couch and others are using it during the day.” TV show spark Jackson learned about Sleep in Heavenly Peace through a February 2018 television program hosted by Mike Rowe of the “Dirty Jobs” TV series.
“I thought it was a cool thing to do,” Jackson said. “There were only 13 chapters nationwide then, and the closest one was in San Antonio, Texas. So, I went to the website and pressed the button to start a chapter, and I did it.” Jackson felt like he had the skills and the wherewithal to make it work.
“My wife, Joy, and I felt like the good Lord was telling us this is what he wanted us to do,” Jackson said. “I went out to Twin Falls (Idaho) to do my training to open my own chapter, and by June we had our first build in my garage. It was the first chapter in Alabama.” Since then, Sleep in Heavenly Peace of Hartselle has built about 1,800 beds, and they are still going strong, Jackson said. There are more than 200 people on the waiting list for beds. All of the work is done by volunteers.
Depending on the organization that sponsors the build, they may get 10 to 50 volunteers to make beds on a build day, said Jackson, who builds at a warehouse off U.S. 31 South. In two to three hours, volunteers can build 20 to 40 beds. They don’t even need to be adept at sawing or any other woodworking or assembly skills.
“We have a neat little assembly line,” Jackson said. “No skills required. Anyone can come in and do it. Volunteers have come from a bunch of churches and from companies like Ascend, Lowe’s, Magnolia River, Quorum and the North Alabama Realtor’s Association.” Jackson knows all of the bed measurements by heart at this point.
“I don’t even have to look at the plans,” he said.
Getting a bed Requests for beds come from families, schools, churches, other civic organizations, the Department of Human Resources and CASA, he said. If you go online to https://shpbeds.org/chapter/ al-hartselle/, you can volunteer, apply for a bed or sponsor a build just by pressing a button. The organization also accepts donations of money, new mattresses and new bedding. They never accept used bedding.
“These kids get a lot of hand-me-downs,” Jackson said.
You can drop off new twin size sheets, pillows and bedding items to Warehouse Coffee at 315 Main St., Hartselle or Lentz Thompson Retirement Advisors, 2205 Graham Ave., Decatur. Checks can be mailed to P.O. Box 1852, Hartselle, AL 35640.
When you apply for a bed, you enter your zip code and that determines which chapter may supply it. There are 10 chapters in Alabama including Hartselle, Limestone County, Muscle Shoals, Huntsville-Madison area, Gadsden, Marshall County, Oneonta, Montgomery and two chapters in Birmingham.
“I like just knowing I’m helping people,” Jackson said. “And the best part is doing the deliveries. You get to hang out with your buddies, go into homes and love on the kids and the families. It’s like Christmas for them.” When putting bedding together for a bed, they try to be mindful of the recipient. A small boy might get bedding with cars or footballs on it.
“Sometimes they just sit there holding the bedding and looking at it,” Jackson said. “It’s just bedding to us but to them it’s a gift.” He said he likes to see how a bed delivery solves a problem.
“Three teens sleeping on a couch now have a place of their own,” he said.
When multiple beds won’t fit, they build upward into bunk beds, he said.
The beds are made from Southern pine and are a basic headboard and footboard with the Sleep in Heavenly Peace logo stenciled or painted on the outside.
“It’s a basic bed,” Jackson said.
Delivery The Martins – Phyllis and husband R.V. – head up the volunteers who deliver beds, sometimes during the week and sometimes on Saturdays when the kids are home from school.
“We go into some very bad situations; it breaks your heart,” Phyllis said, noting that on one occasion they went to a mobile home and set up a bed and could see through the floorboards to the ground below.
“A lot of these kids are sleeping on blow up mattresses or broken-down beds,” she said. “Sometimes just a mattress on the floor. For the most part they are tickled to death when they get a bed.” They often deliver on weekdays but as Christmas grows closer, Sleep in Heavenly Peace wants to deliver as many beds as possible, so they deliver on Saturday mornings, too.
Phyllis and R.V. got start-ed delivering after their church sponsored a bed build.
“You go in sad and come out happy, especially if the kids are at home,” she said. “You get blessed; you surely do.” How it started Sleep in Heavenly Peace started during Christmastime in 2012 in the founder’s garage in a small Idaho town. Luke Mickelson had heard that a child in his neighborhood was sleeping on the floor, so he and his family helped build the first bed. They were so moved by the experience, they made more. A Facebook post about the available beds for kids in need sparked interest from the community, and the volunteer movement was born. Now, Sleep in Heavenly Peace has more than 325 chapters nationwide, and serves children in need in the United States, Canada, Bermuda and the Bahamas.
The organization’s motto is, “No kid sleeps on the floor in our town.”
