We got a call on Tuesday from Jake. No, not Jake from State Farm…Jake from Boys Town. He told us of a mom and her three children who were facing good news that was causing a bit of a challenge. First off, the mother had to get out of a domestic situation immediately, but the only way to get out was to take the children to a shelter while she got situated.
They had been separated for a while when news arrived. She found a place and they could all be together again! The challenge was that she only had two mattresses…Jeremiah, the oldest at I’m guessing 6 or 7, said he didn’t need a bed and that his sisters needed them more. This is when Jake, who was helping them through this transition, started calling places to see what could be done.
He called us as a last effort. He explained the situation and we immediately got to work. See, we do have hospital beds that we offer out at very reasonable rent, and periodically we rotate mattresses out and replace them with new. The old ones are still good, and frankly we had a small supply and didn’t know what we were going to do with them. We didn’t want them to end up in the landfill…we thought about putting an ad on social media in case someone needed a slightly used mattress. It just hadn’t happened yet.
We told Jake to come on by and pick one out for Jeremiah and we’d be glad to help! Well, a few hours passed and in walked Jake, mom and her children. I asked if I could help them and Jeremiah said “I’m getting a new bed today,” very enthusiastically!
We went back to our warehouse and I showed them our supply. Mom said Jeremiah got to choose so we moved them around and he felt a few different ones…I told him to take his time because it was a big decision…suddenly a blue mattress was in sight. We had a winner! Jeremiah said his favorite color was blue!
He shouted “I have a bed…I have a bed!” I don’t think I could have smiled any bigger at that moment. Jeremiah thanked me over and over…mom thanked me…and Jake thanked me as well. Jake said, “I hate to say this but we have other families in similar circumstances…” I said “Call me tomorrow…I have more mattresses…we’re here to help.”