Bunks Across Buffalo Event Builds Beds for Those in Need

As president of the Sleep in Heavenly Peace-Buffalo chapter, Sheldon helped oversee more than 200 volunteers who set up at various stations in the Eastern Hills Mall parking lot Saturday for the third annual “Bunks Across Buffalo” in which they participated in the construction. 100 new wooden beds for Buffalo children who need them.

In 2019, he learned online about an organization called Sleep in Heavenly Peace, founded in 2012 by Luke Mickelson of Twin Falls, Idaho, that used volunteers to build beds for children in need and delivered the products to them finished, then reproduced the charity in Buffalo.

“We found this organization online and when we did some research, we found that no one in Buffalo was doing it. So my wife, Mary Jo, and I, along with Rick and Betsy Divita, decided to do it. So we went to Idaho to do our training and start our chapter,” Sheldon said.

Betsy Divita, vice president of the Sleep in Heavenly Peace-Buffalo chapter, said the nonprofit organization relies entirely on volunteers.

“There is no cost to the recipient, and anyone living in the city of Buffalo can request one of the beds. The only thing we require is that you have children between the ages of 3 and 17 and live in a zip code in the city of Buffalo,” Divita said.

“We make the complete bed. It’s a wooden bed. It’s very sturdy. Everybody’s the same. It has our SHP logo on the end, and then it’s delivered straight to the house, assembled at home, with mattress and bedding, ready to go to sleep,” she added.

Volunteers also delivered 90 beds to needy households in Buffalo on Saturday.

Divita took a quick tour of the various stations where the bed parts are manufactured before being assembled.

“It’s the soaking station where they take each piece of wood – that’s the headboard one – and just soak it for a few minutes (and it) gives it a nice color and it smells nice,” a- she declared. a sly wink. “The vinegar smell fades after a while.” Divita said.

While the treated bed rails were left to dry, they were on the drilling station and then in a room inside the mall where the wood pieces were finished with light sanding.

“All our beds are built by volunteers,” Divita said. “It could be community groups. It could be just individuals. It could be businesses, and they will come, basically, on a Saturday or a day like today, and do the building .”

Volunteers wore blue or red shirts.

“The blue shirts are our trained volunteers who supervise the stations and just advise them. But it’s our volunteers who build the beds, which is a big contribution and that’s why we’re able to deliver around 120 beds per month,” Divita said.

Blue Shirt Marty Visciano of Clarence is a longtime volunteer who has been with the organization since the beginning. As a retired shop teacher at Alden High School, he and the other blueshirts helped guide the other less experienced redshirt volunteers.

“I taught high school carpentry for 30 years. So managing students as well as adults is exactly what I love doing, and I have a knack for making sure everyone is busy and everyone everyone has something to do all day,” Visciano said. .

Theresa Shanahan of Amherst, wearing a red shirt, has been volunteering with Sleep in Heavenly Peace for a little more than three years.

“I came across this. I was walking through a mall with my friends during Covid, my work friends, and I saw this store, and I wondered what they were doing. So I picked up a flyer and I contacted a group of my friends “One of my friends volunteered and she said I should go with her. So I did, and we’ve been here together for three years,” Shanahan said.

“Well, I believe that volunteering is important. I believe that the community is a we, not a me, and that we can all live together, and that everyone has secret mentors in their lives. So let’s help the kids to take off, to become a good night’s sleep, a good education to be able to get out of poverty and be able to buy their children a bed,” Shanahan added.

Madeline Manka of Amherst and Kevin Driscoll of Lancaster were both volunteering for the first time. Neither had any experience in carpentry or bed building.

“I’ve done some home improvement work, but that’s it,” Driscoll said.

He said they started by sanding, then started marking the beds. “We actually put the logo right on the beds, and then we’ll move on to assembling and coloring and cutting, the whole process,” Driscoll added.

“It’s been a lot of fun so far,” said Manka, who, after just a few hours of volunteering, vowed to return to help make more beds.

“It’s truly an example of a city of good neighbors,” Sheldon said of the organization’s efforts.

He added: “We started this and in a very short time we had a lot of people wanting to participate and volunteer with us, very engaged people, very caring people, and we built a very strong community of volunteers who truly love helping the children of Buffalo.