Old stuff brings new hope

On Christmas Eve, thousands of kids across the country will be hoping Santa brings a used mattress down the chimney. They have been sleeping fitfully on the floor every night, probably in a barren apartment. They go to school aching after a bad night’s sleep. Fortunately, Santa’s helpers are at work in Cedar Rapids and in Iowa City.

Central Furniture Rescue has been in Linn County since 2019 and is a model nonprofit dependent on the generosity of folks who do have household items they want to give away. I know the Iowa City counterpart, Houses into Homes, because I volunteer there a couple hours a week. Five years ago, two Iowa City women talked at a dinner party about the invisible people in our community. In our relatively affluent area, people survived, out of sight and essentially out of mind.

Some had made the first step back from prison. Women were escaping being beaten by an angry, sometimes drunken, husband. Some, both adults and kids, had been homeless and maybe living under a bridge or in an old car.

The women at the party decided to do something about people who were less fortunate than they. They began in a simple way: they looked for used mattresses headed to the dump. They cheated the landfill, cleaned the mattresses up, hired dogs that could sniff bedbugs and mold.

They started in a vacant garage and soon filled it, mostly with beds. The first Christmas, just weeks after they started, they visited an apartment that had clean floors and virtually nothing else, except a young mother and a squirming, grinning boy about eight. The mother said, “Jimmy is counting the days.” Asked, “before Christmas?” She responded “No, before he gets to sleep on a mattress.” Jimmy had been going to school after a night on the floor, expected to do as well as his classmates who had slept warm and comfortable every night.

Houses Into Homes has made livable 350 households where 800 live, 450 of them children. Because of the generosity alive in our community, with beds, sofas, tables, bookcases kitchen table and chairs, coat hangers, silver ware, and some dishes. There are kitchen utensils, including old microwaves. There are sheets and towels, and from time to time a few kids’ books.

Beyond the creature comforts, there is something else. One mother wrote, “You all have been so awesome, and I appreciate this. I made my bed, it looks so good.” Ho-hum for most of us. A blessing for an appreciative recipient.

Another grateful recipient — a man — wrote: “You guys totally blew my mind. I didn’t deserve all that nice stuff you guys brought. That was such a blessing. I’ve been really down and out and just walking in yesterday, I about broke down. It got me really motivated to do better again. Just want to say thanks to whoever helped bring those things for me.”

Houses into Homes, like Central Furniture, is a nonprofit that depends on volunteers and gifts to give those invisible people, hope, love, and a vision of a better life. By the way, Houses needs can openers, a vital tool when you think about it, and the microwave you are about to discard or a mattress or box spring. They’ll check for bedbugs.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary