On April 29, more than 85 volunteers from Wyatt Park Christian Church (WPCC), Youth Alliance and other churches, agencies and groups from throughout St. Joseph came together to help build beds through the organization Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP).

This event always brings an outpouring of support from church members that can’t attend but want to help provide bedding and pillows. This is our 3rd annual build since 2021 and each time we try to build between 40-50 beds, which stay in our community and are delivered to children that currently do not have a bed. The SHP Chapter that we work with is from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas and their team, headed by Chapter President Patrick O’Malley, has been amazing in sharing their knowledge, tools and insight.

When a child receives a bed, they not only get the bed frame but also a new mattress, sheets, pillow and comforter. Our local quilters guild has also gotten involved and are making and donating twin sized quilts for some of our deliveries. (The bunk bed photo has two quilts from that group.)

WPCC first learned about the need through social workers who we partner with and knew there had to be a way to help. In the last two years over 100 beds have been delivered by the amazing volunteers. SHP’s motto is “No Child Sleeps on the Floor in Our Town” and while we aren’t there yet, each time we build that means more children are off the floor. Then, they are hopefully sleeping a little better, hopefully doing better in school and knowing that there is someone that cares about them enough to provide such a simple item like a bed for them. It is humbling to realize there are so many that don’t have a bed.

Some recipient families are just getting into a new home after a time of being unsheltered. Since the state requires that every child has a bed or they can be removed from the home, we do see referrals from the school district, and we work closely with Children's Division through another nonprofit organization which is a technology platform called CarePortal. CarePortal is how we first learned about the need for beds and by helping with SHP we are able to step in before it gets to Children's Division.

Thank you to Tonya Ball, WPCC Children’s Ministry Director for this story and photos.