Building Beds

Angie Bowman uses a countersink drill bit to create the holes where the pieces of a wooden headboard will be joined together at a Sleep in Heavenly Peace bed building event in Poplar Bluff, Mo., on Sat., Feb. 27, 2021.

Photo by Paul Davis, courtesy of Daily American Republic

Beds are warm. They are safe. They are comforting, soft, renewing. They allow us to surrender the struggles and joys of our day to sleep. They provide a place for us to rise from each morning as we start a new day.

Across the country and in our own communities in Southeast Missouri, however, not every child has a bed. Some sleep on the floor or on a pile of clothes. Others sleep on a couch or with multiple people in a bed meant for one. Studies have linked inadequate sleep to hyperactivity and obesity in children and to anxiety and depression in teenagers. Additionally, sleep is an important factor in brain development and physical growth for both children and teenagers. Having a bed to sleep in helps young people get the sleep that is crucial to their development; in the U.S., childhood bedlessness is a hidden struggle there are no statistics for.

Keith Bowman (left) and Billy Lawrence dip sections of the wooden bed frames into a staining solution, one of the final steps of the building process.

When Dave Elledge of Poplar Bluff, Mo., first learned about childhood bedlessness while at a conference in 2019, he and his wife, Poplar Bluff's SHP co-president Luann Elledge, decided to do something about it. Wanting each child to experience rest that is secure and renewing, they started a chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP) in Poplar Bluff to build beds, giving them away for free to children who don’t have one.

“[We] didn’t even really realize how big of a response we were going to get once we got this thing rolling,” Elledge says. “We’ve all been super surprised at how vast the need is. You build 100 beds and get those out, and then you have 100 more requests. It’s just almost never-ending.”

The organization is a national one that was founded in Twin Falls, Idaho, in 2012: Luke Mickelson built a bunk bed for a family he knew, and with the leftover wood, he built another one. When he made a post on Facebook asking if anyone needed a bed, many people in his community commented that they wanted to help build beds for children who didn’t have one, too. They assembled and began seeing how many beds they could build for families in need.

The movement now has more than 250 chapters across the country, although Poplar Bluff volunteer Greg Gilberto hopes more chapters continue to form, as he believes there should be a chapter in every three counties to best serve people’s needs.

About 40 volunteers turned out for an August build day, put on by Sleep in Heavenly Peace, in which up to 40 children's beds were produced.

Paul Davis/Daily American Republic

“Really, what we’re supposed to do as Christians is find out what is the need and [ask], ‘What can I do?’ You can’t do everything, but you can do something,” Gilberto says. “My greatest hope is that somebody else would catch the vision maybe in Cape Girardeau [and start a chapter there]. … You don’t have to look hard if you want to help. … If there’s a need, and you open yourself and try to fulfill that need, that’s where the blessing of God flows.”

The Poplar Bluff SHP chapter has built more than 300 beds, delivering 235 of those since they began in 2019. They keep the beds stocked in a warehouse while they are waiting to get mattresses for each one before delivering them. With the other closest chapters in Springfield, Mo., Paducah, Ky., and St. Louis, the Poplar Bluff chapter delivers beds throughout a large region and has had requests for beds as far west as Piedmont, Mo., and as far north as Scott City. They seek to meet each need when they can.

On bed building days, volunteers gather to make a total of 40 beds. No tools or prior carpentry experience is necessary to help build; tools are provided, and volunteers set up in an assembly line fashion after being taught how to do their specific task at the start of the day. Often, the operation is set up outside in a parking lot to help spread awareness about the organization and childhood bedlessness. There are wood cutting, sanding and drilling stations, as well as stations for assembling headboards and side rails and staining.

SHP partners with national organizations who sell them mattresses at a discounted rate. When they receive a request for a bed, a team of two to four people take the pieces to the home to assemble it. When they leave, the child has a new bed, mattress, sheets, comforter and pillow.

Kelly Willis supervises her 10-year-old son, Ethan Willis, as he drills into a board during Saturday's bed building event.

The project has become a community endeavor for Poplar Bluff, uniting churches and community members in a common cause. Gilberto is a pastor at a local church, and his congregation provides new pillows for the project, holding communal prayer services at which they bless each pillow and pray for the child who will use it. A woman from the community with Alzheimer’s quilted a dozen new quilts to donate to the project. And when Elledge put out a call on Facebook for new twin-size comforters, boxes of bedding from Amazon started showing up anonymously on his porch.

SHP’s motto is “No kid sleeps on the floor in our town.” It’s an aspiration Poplar Bluff’s SHP Build Director Doug Morris hopes to make reality.

“I would hope that someday we wouldn’t have to do [this project] anymore [because every child would have a bed to sleep in], but you know, I don’t see that coming any day quick,” Morris says. “That’s the biggest thing that I would like to see is to the point where we wouldn’t have to do it.”

Although that day is not here yet, Morris, Elledge, Gilberto and their fellow community members are working towards making that goal reality, one bed at a time. And while their community is being transformed, they’re being changed in the process, too.

“You can call someone and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a bed we’re going to come deliver for you, and that will just change the whole direction of your day because when you see that little boy or little girl light up when they get that new bed — that’s really what makes it all worth it,” Elledge says. “Just seeing those kids and hearing the stories sometimes — they were literally sleeping on the floor or on a pile of clothes last night, tonight they’re going to sleep on their own bed — it makes a big difference."

Keira Willis drills into a board, which will be used to construct a children's bed by the Sleep In Heavenly Peace organization.

Want to get involved?

To donate funds to Poplar Bluff’s chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP) or to get involved in a build day, visit their Facebook page, facebook.com/SHPPoplarBluff/. Bedding donations can be shipped to 2617 Woodstone Drive, Poplar Bluff, Mo., 63901; only new bedding is accepted.

To learn more about the national organization, request a bed for a child or find out about starting a chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace in your own community, visit shpbeds.org.