On May 20th, The Littleton Rotary Club celebrated Rotary International’s “Day of Service” by helping children in its area in need of one of life’s essentials: a bed. President-elect Chris Alphen hosted the Littleton Rotary Club, members of the Littleton High School’s Honor Society, and Littleton citizen-volunteers at his Dolphin Insulation headquarters at a Build-a-Bed event in which piles of wood were miraculously made into beds destined for children in need. To get the job done smoothly, Chris assigned a specific task to each person from cutting to sanding, assembling, staining, branding and packaging. Everyone built up an appetite and by noon all enjoyed a delicious lunch donated by The Littleton Sub Shop and Tavern on the Square. By the end of the event, twenty-three beds had been built, branded with the Rotary International logo and prepared for delivery to children throughout the area.
President Elect Chris was inspired to start building beds for disadvantaged kids in 2018 when he viewed a program on Facebook Watch that profiled a family building beds for kids in need.
As Chris explains: “We started with a fund raiser and a district grant in 2018 plus a bunch of small donations and have kept it going and growing ever since. Over the years we have focused on working closely with Social Workers and Case workers. They are our front line and they told us beds for kids are very hard to find.”
As Chris explains: “We started with a fund raiser and a district grant in 2018 plus a bunch of small donations and have kept it going and growing ever since. Over the years we have focused on working closely with Social Workers and Case workers. They are our front line and they told us beds for kids are very hard to find.”
Deb’s Beds, so named in recognition of a long-time bed-building volunteer, has so far delivered over 600 beds while raising approx. $187,000 to pay for all the wood, mattresses, tools and supplies. Most of the pillows, blankets and sheets are donated.Chris continues: “People contact us with requests for beds. They can request a twin bed or a bunk bed. When we receive a request, we schedule the bed for delivery with Mom or the Dad. To prepare a twin bed for delivery takes us 15 minutes including final assembly and adding the mattress and linens. A bunk bed takes about 45 minutes to do the same. The next part is the very best part. When we arrive and begin to assemble the bed in their homes, we can see that these families don’t have very much. When we take the mattresses out of the plastic wrappers and add brand new sheets and blankets to their new beds the kids’ eyes light up! The smiles are huge!”
Chris holds bed build days in which groups or companies sponsor the day. A bed costs $250 so if a sponsor wants to build 10 beds, they will donate $2,500.
According to the Census of 2022 numbers, 2% to 3% of children in America don’t have beds. In Massachusetts alone there are an estimated 27,000 children in need of a bed. President-elect Chris and the Littleton Rotary Club will be happy to help any Rotary club interested in starting a build-a-bed group of its own.