Brian Buckwalter was scrolling through Facebook three years ago when he found a page so startling he couldn’t ignore it.
“It stopped me in my tracks,” he recalled. “I looked at my wife and said, ‘We’ve got to do something.’”
Buckwalter had stumbled upon the home page of Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a national organization with 300 chapters that builds beds for kids without them. Its mission statement: “No kid sleeps on the floor in our town.”
“I didn’t even know this problem existed,” said Buckwalter. “There was an instant connection that made me think I had to do something. I reached out to the organization, and since there wasn’t a chapter in my area, I was invited to start one.””
The Buford resident is now president of Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s Gwinnett County chapter. A big part of the job is educating others about the need for kids to have safe sleeping spaces.
“It’s a shock to people living in our community that there are kids sleeping on the floor, on couches, with their parents, on a pile of clothes,” he said.
The nonprofit’s mission also gave Buckwalter a focus for his woodworking hobby.
“I thought I could build beds to combine my joy of building things with serving,” he said. “But I soon realized building in my garage doesn’t bring attention to the problem.”
Buckwalter established a series of assembly-line building events to expedite the process. Teams of 40 to 50 volunteers, many with no building experience, can work together for a few hours and quickly produce 50 beds.
“The most we’ve done is 200 in one day,” said Buckwalter. “We get hands on tools and do it.”
The Gwinnett group has recruited partners for the annual “Bunks Across America” build in the fall at Lawrenceville United Methodist Church. Volunteers from companies such as David Weekley Homes and Keller Williams Realty have pitched in.
“When organizations find out how hands-on this is, they jump on it,” said Buckwalter. “And we can be mobile and bring the project to them.”
Earlier this year, Perimeter Roofing in Lawrenceville donated a permanent space.
“We’d been operating out of a storage unit and a trailer,” said Buckwalter. “When Perimeter bought a new building, they insisted we take part of their space to us as a permanent location. Now we don’t have to pay for storage, and we have a place where we can support small builds. And they help us with deliveries.”
A recent small build had the Buford High soccer team building five beds. They were among the 379 beds the chapter has delivered since its founding. Each one costs $250 to construct and outfit with a new mattress, linens and pillow. Fundraising efforts cover the costs.
“We take donations, and every dollar we raise stays with the chapter,” said Buckwalter. “People can also sign up for a build day or host one. Either way, we know there’s a need, and we can fill it.”
Information about Sleep in Heavenly Peace online at shpbeds.org.
Who’s doing good? Each week, we write about a deserving individual, charity events such as fun-runs, volunteer projects and other community gatherings that benefit a good cause. To suggest an event or person for us to cover, contact us at ajc.doinggood@gmail.com.
