(flute and drums playing softly) - [Narrator] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency.

And by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hello.

Welcome to "Illinois Stories."

I'm Mark McDonald in Quincy, at Servpro, where on this Saturday afternoon, an all volunteer crew, is building beds for kids who sleep on the floor.

I just became aware of this group myself.

It's a national effort to get kids comfortable, to where they can sleep in a civilized surrounding.

And this is quite impressive because today they're going to build 20 beds here and all of these beds will be given to kids, here, in West Central Illinois, so they can get off the floor to get a good night's sleep.

(saws whirring) Emilie, this is the beginning of the process of making these beds for kids who would normally have asleep on the floor.

- That's right.

- They don't have to anymore because they're gonna have a bed to sleep in.

- That's right.

- This is your husband?

- Yes.

- He's cutting the wood.

And these, this wood is going to be used for not only, for all of those beds.

Part of the headboard, part of it, the whole deal.

It starts here, right?

- That's right.

- As we stand here, it's about 10:30 in the morning.

You all have been at this for a couple hours already.

So the wood's already cut.

- Yeah.

- Take us through the process just a little bit.

- Okay, yeah.

So it'll go from the cutting station over to the sanding stations and our volunteers will grab wood in, in bundles of what the headboard consists of.

And then they sand the pieces of the headboard and then they take them over to the next station where they get transferred to the, the drilling and cutting and the drilling stations and the assembling stations.

- [Mark] Yeah so this it's an assembly line, and each bed has certain specs.

So you're going to make what 20 beds today?

- That's right, 20 beds.

- [Mark] Okay.

And it's gonna go right through an assembly line process.

Right now, we're looking at all the sanders.

You've got like 10 or 12 volunteers just in the sanding department.

And that's true, isn't it?

It's all a volunteer effort.

- That's right.

- [Mark] Tell us about what trick, I mean, is there a trick to sanding?

- [Emilie] You know, there isn't, it's really easy.

We even have, you know, sometimes kids even come in here and do it.

And you just have to make sure that the bed is safe.

And so you just run it along the wood and if you see anything that's, that could get caught, you know, on a, an article of clothing or could cause a splinter, you just- - Okay, you want to just as smooth as possible because there's going to be a child in there and they don't wanna get, don' wanna get gets splinters- - That's right.

or cuts or anything like that.

- Okay, now, there's a ton of sanders here.

Where do all this, I mean, people don't bring their own sanders, do they?

- That's correct.

Yeah.

Nobody has to bring anything.

They just show up and get to have fun with all the tools.

So all the tools here have been either donated by local people, local stores, or we have used donated money to go into the local places and purchase them as we need them.

Because, as you can imagine, these sanders get quite a bit of use.

- Yeah.

And, and the fact is, these are all volunteers, but you're also a volunteer.

You're the chapter president, and you and your husband don't make a penny either, do you?

- That's right.

- How did you get involved in it?

- We watched a show on Facebook called "Returning the Favor" by Mike Rowe.

And he finds people who are doing awesome things that nobody knows about and he makes people know about them.

So we watched it and this is, this part makes me really emotional, but, when, you find out that there are children, that have no place to sleep, or they aren't sleeping in a safe place, you just have to do something about it.

You don't just let that, keep happening.

- Yeah.

How long have you been doing this?

- About three years.

- Three years.

How many beds do you think you been able to accomplish?

- About 300.

- Wow.

- And one of those years was, we were shut down, from COVID.

So we, yeah, we're pretty excited about that number.

- You're all over Western, West Central Illinois, and go into Missouri too, like six counties in Missouri as well.

- That's right.

- You have 300 kids that are sleeping in beds that would have been sleeping on the floor.

That's gotta feel really good.

- It's amazing, yeah.

- You also have some very committed volunteers and they join you on all your builds.

And we're going to get a chance to talk to some of them aren't we?

- [Emilie] Yeah, I hope so, yeah.

- [Mark] Because, because they're there they're, you couldn't do it without them, right?

- [Emilie] I couldn't.

No, Nope.

I couldn't do it.

We depend on people, telling other people about what we do, and showing up and getting the job done so.

- [Mark] Well, good.

We're going to follow the process through today and learn more about this, because it's a very interesting organization.

Okay.

I'm doing now, this looks like she's making marks on the board for some reason or another, what's going on here?

- That's correct.

This is our tapping station and she places each piece of wood in a specific spot.

And what it does is, lets the person at the next station know, where to drill the holes.

- [Mark] Ah, okay.

So she's not actually making the holes.

She's she's giving them the indication, this is where you drill?

- That's correct.

- Okay.

All right.

And these are for the headboards, right?

- That's correct, yes, this is the headboard station.

- Okay.

And then we can move down a little bit.

Let's go this way, and take us over here to see, Then there's a small, now he's drilling small holes where she indicated they had to be.

Is that, is that what's going on?

- Yeah, that's correct.

Wherever he sees those little holes that she tapped into, he's he's drilling for the smaller screws that go into the headboards.

And then he puts them there, and then our drill press people, grab them from there, and then they drill the larger hole where the larger bolts and screws are going to go when they assemble the headboards.

- [Mark] When they assemble.

Okay.

All right.

And we're going to get to see that process, too.

- [Emilie] Yeah, yeah.

- [Mark] And then these things, just for clarification, these beds actually get put together in the home where they're going to end up, right?

- [Emilie] That's correct.

- [Mark] But they're all, everything's drilled, and all the, all the hardware is available right there.

- [Emilie] That's correct.

- [Mark] It's a matter of just assembling them at that.

- [Emilie] Yeah.

That's correct.

We have several places that allow us to store our beds, and our bedding, and the mattresses and everything.

So it makes the most sense to store them in the smaller pieces.

We don't have room to store - You are so fortunate, you have this Servpro facility when you have an indoor build, right?

It's hard to find a facility this big, with this much open space where you can move all your power equipment here and do it.

- That's correct.

And a place that is willing to deal with our mess.

There's a lot of sawdust.

- [Mark] And you've got a lot of wood here that you had to purchase.

How does that work?

- That's right, so there are two ways that we can do a build day.

We can do a public build day that is funded just with donated money.

We get checks in the mail from people who care all the time.

People fundraise with their churches, or businesses, or organizations, and they send the money to us.

And then we can then use that money to purchase the wood.

Or, a local organization can sponsor a build, and they can purchase the wood for us.

But we typically get our wood from WoodMart Building Center in Quincy, Illinois.

And they make sure that we get the wood for the best possible prices because yeah.

- Really important because lumber is so expensive now, and you need so much of it.

- We need a lot of lumber.

- Well it's really goes for a good cause I'm sure.

Now, okay, this is going on, while this is going on, these sideboards are being built at the same.

- Yes.

At the same time, we are also building these side rails.

So these are also cut at, the beginning stages to be the correct length, and true to assembly line form, we have he has pre placed all these screws and then they get drilled into, these pieces here, and they come out looking like this.

- Oh, okay.

So, so these are the, what he's pre placed, right?

You just drill those in.

- Yep.

So you just pre places them so that all he has to do is grab this piece of wood, put that piece of wood on it, and just go to town.

- Yup.

Yup.

Okay.

So he's getting ready to drill those in right now.

He's taking a break.

We got to talk to him.

- That's right.

Going and go get, go get him, right.

- This is Bob here?

- This is Bob, yeah.

- What's he gonna be doing?

- So he's using this jig that's got, it's just a smaller one, it's got those tracks spikes in it and he's going to place it up against the board and tap it.

And that puts the marks exactly where he needs to drill the hole.

- Those are the starting point for this.

Okay.

And these are the side, the side boards?

- The side rails, yeah.

- Okay.

All right.

- Okay.

And then, he just goes over to the other side, - Show us what you're gonna do there.

- On the other end, okay.

- Same process just for the other end.

This is, it helps it be more of a no fail process.

- Well, it's got to all fit.

I mean, if we get this in the house, and the holes are in the wrong place, the poor guy that's going to install this bed isn't going to be able to put it together, right?

- That's correct.

Yeah.

It's a lot of extra work if we don't get it done right here.

So.

- Okay.

- Then he carries it, so we're actually a little low on volunteers today.

- Are you're, really?

It looks like it's buzzing to be.

- Yeah.

- It looks like you're, - Usually we would have people at each station ready to do this, but today.

- Bobby's do it himself, okay.

- So he's placing that small chunk of wood just to guide himself to the correct spot.

And then he drills those, and he'll do one on each side to make sure that it's kind of stays in place, and then the rest of them will go in.

- [Mark] And he's going to work really fast because look, he's got it all set up.

- [Emilie] That's right.

- [Mark] And this is how you can build 20 beds in three hours.

- [Emilie] That's right.

Yeah.

That's right.

- Mike Milhauser, you've been on a few of these builds, haven't you?

- Yes.

- Are you a carpenter yourself?

- Nope, not a carpenter, but like working with wood.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

What are these guys in the process of doing?

- So they're assembling the headboard now.

We have a jig set up, so as they put the wood into place, it's going to hold it for them.

They're going to flip the headboard over and assemble a couple more boards on it, and as it goes back into the jig, it kind of checks if everything's true and square or not for them.

And then they've got some screwdrivers.

If they're having trouble lining things, they can drop the screwdrivers and a hole, it pins it together to help people as they come to these builds, they don't have to know how to put things together.

We've got ways to teach them how to put things together.

- [Mark] I see, okay.

This is just the way being sure that it's all like everything's all lined up where it needs to be.

- [Mike] Yup yup.

It helps us line it up.

- [Mark] The cool thing about this is you, you can take people, like myself, who don't know anything about carpentry or putting things together and they can be successful with this, can't they?

- Yeah, yep.

- [Mark] It's really nice.

- [Mike] We have a lot of people that come and don't know how to use an impact driver or a drill, we teach them how to use it and at the end of the day, they're feeling very accomplished.

- [Mark] And then you say, we'll see, now come back and help us next time.

- [Mike] Yep, exactly.

- [MARK] Take us over, next door.

You were in the process of doing something here.

What were you doing?

- [Mike] Our next stage is cleaning out the holes of the headboard and making dowel pin holes, so we can stack the beds together to make bunk beds.

So each one of these beds, will be set apart like this.

- [Mark] Yep.

- We've got another jig to make it easy, that goes onto the headboard, keeps this in place, We drill our holes, for our dowel pins.

Then it goes back over to the next station, where we're gonna clean all the holes out, so when our delivery crews are assembling the beds, they don't have to drill anything in, at someone's home.

Everything's ready to bolt together.

- Yeah.

Sawdust and all that stuff, that would be a mess.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

- So we just clean the holes out, on both sides, and then we make a counter sink, on whatever's going to be our face that people are going to see, whatever side looks better.

- Well, this one, probably this side.

- That looks great - because we're gonna brand it with an SHP logo before it gets dipped.

- S H P, Sleep in Heavenly Peace, - Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

- that's the name of the organization, okay?

- So that'll get branded.

So now we're going to, we're making bottom beds, so we're gonna countersink two holes, for a bottom bed, - And now when you say a bottom bed, this could be used as a bunk bed as well?

- Yeah, it could be a bunk bed, so in this state, it's a bottom bed.

It sits like this.

If this is going to be a top bed, these dowel pins, we flip it, this will sit on top like that.

And at that point we have our side rails and we have a safety rail because the top bed needs, the safety rail.

- Ingenious.

Ingenious, yeah.

- Then from here, they go to another stage, where someone will go over it.

They'll sand any little burrs off.

They'll double-check the screws.

Make sure they're all counter sunk so a kid doesn't get their fingernail caught on a screw head or something like that.

And once it finishes that stage, then it's going to move on to the dipping process.

- Okay.

Can you take us over there?

Show us that.

Now dipping, is that's the last process?

Dipping?

- The last process for the side rails, we still have to burn the logo into the headboards before they get dipped.

- Oh.

Before they get dipped.

- Before they get dipped.

- Okay.

All right.

So, they, have they been burned already?

Have they been.

- This, this doesn't get a burn logo on this.

This just gets treated and is set down to dry.

- And what is this treatment?

It's a side rail.

Describe what the source of this liquid is.

- This is vinegar and steel wool.

So the steel wool gets put in the vinegar, for several days.

The steel wool will rust and dissolve and that colors the vinegar.

And that gives us a shade of brown.

And over two or three day time of drying, this will actually change color, and look better.

- Like what color will it be?

- It'll be a darker brown.

We've got one out in the trailer we can actually show you what the finished stain looks like.

- So it will, but it'll take a couple of days.

It'll sit there on that, on that, on that liner, that, that tarp and, and it'll start changing almost immediately.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

As it dries, it'll change color.

- Well, Jacob, you and your wife are very committed to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, but so are these folks.

- Correct.

Tell me about these volunteers.

I mean, you get, whenever you have a build you get people showing up, don't you?

- That's correct.

Yeah.

My wife does a really good job of posting it online, and then word of mouth, we call lots of different people say, "Hey, this is the month we're going to do it."

And this year is the first year that we've actually planned out all the way through the year to where we know roughly when our dates of our builds are, so we can get more volunteers in as we go.

We got several, I'd say we got a 10 to 12 core team volunteers that are with us all the time, that either go out and do the deliveries or come in and help set up all this beforehand.

And then places like here like Servpro, they do a great job of bringing in their, their workers as well to help all of us the day before, because normally they have all this packed, and they come in and clean it all out for us.

- Yeah, they can, 'cause you got a space, right?

- Correct.

Yes.

- It's interesting too, because okay.

You haul all the, all the saw horses, all the drills, all the saws, everything that you need here, you have to bring with you.

- That's correct.

- How do you do that?

- We got a, we got a big box trailer and then we had a friend of ours actually pretty much give us a three quarter ton pickup to help haul that.

And then, and so he gave it, I mean, a ridiculous deal on it.

And so we, we can use that.

And so then all, everything that we've used to purchase the trailers, all the materials, all of the saw horses, drills, all that, have all come from donated money from, from people in the community.

- It makes a ton of your time.

You and your wife have devote a lot of time to this because logistically there's a lot of setup.

I mean, it's got it be, you can tell how organized it is.

That doesn't just happen, does it?

- No.

No, but no, I mean, we do, it does take up some time, but it's something we're happy to do.

Our kids, we've got a two-year and a four-year old, they actually pretend like they're delivering beds at home and, just goofing off stuff like that.

So, I mean, it's part of their lives as well.

And, and then we've got a great, great team base, that takes care of the applications right, that when they come in, they, they vet all those by calling the people, seeing how old their children are, all that and everything that we need with that.

And then we got two to four delivery teams that are just constantly going out and helping deliver everything.

- And that's what I want to talk about too, because we've been able to see here, how you make the beds and how you get them ready to assemble, but somebody has to deliver them and assemble them in the home, right?

- That's correct, yes.

- They must be pretty talented people.

- They are, and luckily the headquarters, but when they got everything going, they got it down, set to where anybody can come in and help with that.

But yeah, we have to have somebody that knows what they're doing, while they're doing it.

And, but honestly, all it is is on one single bed, you're looking at eight, eight lags and it's put together.

And then you put it in the slats and it's put together and it's all right there.

The kids get a big old kick out of watching it all go together.

- And they can do it pretty quick, can't they?

- As long as you got a crew that knows what they're doing, you can be in and out and just doing one bed and maybe take five, six minutes, maybe 10 minutes max.

- That's remarkable.

Thank you, Laura Moore, what do you like about doing this, on a Saturday?

- Oh, the, the thrill of actually knowing that what I do helps children, that, even though it is a little dusty, a little, you know, a little involved it's, it's a lot of fun, you know, got great people and I know it's just for a good cause.

- You were in the sanding department earlier today.

You said a lot of people don't like that because it's really dusty.

- Exactly.

Exactly, I do.

I don't mind it.

I find it kinda, you just kind of get in a groove and you just, I don't know, a little meditative, I suppose, you just kind of space out and just make sure, you know, you don't have any splinters and, go on tho the next board.

- Sounds like a hive in there.

So you're all are a member of a beehive sort of.

- Yes, exactly.

- Working together and, It is.

And you kind of get to see like parts of the bed coming together, you know, it's not just two by fours or whatever.

We get the long ones and the short ones.

And knowing that it'll help.

- We were talking about, you also do you're on the delivery detail once in a while, so you actually go into the child's home and put the bed together.

That's gotta be really rewarding, isn't it?

- That I, I personally think it's the best part.

I get to see the kids' faces, the gratitude of the parents, It's it's pretty cool.

- It's remarkable in this day and age, and I'm sure that it's, it's not that rare, but when I heard about Sleep in Heavenly Peace and the fact that there were all these children that don't have beds to sleep in, I had no idea.

- Exactly.

We, my husband and I still talk about, we, the amount of beds we continuously put out and deliver.

It's nothing for us to deliver eight beds on a day, when we go and deliver and the need, just here in Quincy.

Quincy is not a large metropolitan area.

And just, I can't even fathom places like Chicago, St. Louis, things like that.

So the need here in Quincy alone, is tremendous.

I couldn't couldn't imagine.

- Well, yeah, it's, it's wonderful work and it's, I think you enjoy it, don't you?

- I do, I do both sides of, - your Saturday morning this way?

- Oh, I wouldn't have it any other way.

- Okay, thanks.

- Thank you, Jim Funk how many of these builds have you been on?

A number of them?

- I've probably been on eight or 10 of them.

We we've missed a couple when we were out of town, but we've been to all that we've, - And your son is also active in this.

In fact, he was one of the original core members that got the training.

- That is correct.

He was one of the five that went to Twin Falls and got, got the training out there.

- Yeah, it's interesting that this is a national organization.

I assume it's growing too, because people are finding out about it and everybody would like to see this, this thing succeed.

- Well, I mean, who wouldn't want to see, want to see a kid up off the floor, right?

Yeah, I think right now there are, there are chapters in the U S, and Canada, and Bermuda and The Bahamas.

And I think all 50 states, there are 14 chapters in the state of Illinois.

- Wow.

- The closest one to the Liberty Chapter is up in La Harpe.

And then there is a chapter in Springfield and I don't remember where all else.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

It's wonderful work.

And I tell you, what's really neat about this is it is so organized, that you don't have to ask your volunteers to hang around all weekend, but they can get it done in three hours, and man, they feel like they really did something.

- We've got an amazing bunch.

I mean, we've ever build that we've done, we've had just an amazing group of volunteers.

We have a kind of a core group that does the set up, and sorta gets people going.

But most of the people that are here today have been involved in a build before.

So you don't really have to, you don't have to tell them the drill.

It just like, yeah.

Like grab a sander and go at it.

- Yep.

That's what you were doing earlier when we saw you, right?

You don't mind that sanding, do you?

- No.

I just, I feel a little bit like Frosty the Snowman at the moment, with the sawdust all over me, but other than that, no, I don't mind.

- Well, thanks for your help.

Appreciate it.

- Yeah.

Thank you.

I appreciate you.

Appreciate you coming in here, and your interest.

- Emilie, I am surprised to know that there's so many kids without beds.

I'm sure you were surprised to know that when you first got involved, how do, the people that need beds for their kids, find you?

How does that happen?

- Yeah, so we have a Facebook and an Instagram page and as things get shared in the community, people see the posts that we make on those, and then they contact me through Facebook a lot of times, and then I direct them to the application.

Or, we are connected to like the local organizations in Quincy that care for children.

So like Care Net, ChatOut, Child and Family Services.

- Ah, so they just know a lot of the kids that you never see.

- That's right.

And so if they know of children that are in, need a bed, they can fill out the application for the families that they are servicing, as well.

A lot of it's just word of mouth, that gets them that.

- [Mark] Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, so you do that.

Do you have to do any vetting of the kids or are you just saying, oh, you do you find out, you find out more about them?

- [Emilie] We do.

Yeah.

They fill out the application and then we give them a call to discuss the application, find out, you know, where are the kids currently sleeping?

And do the families just want a new bed or, you know, are the children really either sleeping on the floor or, you know, are there six kids in a bed, is the whole family sharing a queen-size bed?

Are they sleeping on couches?

You know, any of those situations would qualify the kid to receive a bed, and it's children ages three through 17.

- [Mark] Okay.

So then you get the kids on the list and they of course then, you build, your building all the time because you know that you're always going to be needing them, right?

- Yeah.

- But you can't just deliver a bed.

There's gotta be, I mean, sheets and pillows.

How does all that work?

- That's right.

So we get bedding donations from the community.

We have an Amazon list that can be easily accessed.

People, purchase things from Amazon and they come directly to us.

We put them in storage and they're just waiting there for, for kids to sleep in.

We also have a local drop-off location.

One of our volunteers owns Accurate Home Audio, here in Quincy.

People can drop off the bedding at, at their store, and then we, - Oh, that's nice, that's real nice.

- Yes.

It's great.

- I guess the biggest expense is wood.

I would suspect that your biggest expanse, - Yeah.

- although you do have incidentals, like, you know, you gotta buy gas for the truck, and you've got the trailer, and you've got all the saws and all that.

But a lot of that equipment comes to you donated too, doesn't it?

- Yeah.

Yes.

Everything we do has been donated, whether that's through money or just directly.

- [Mark] How do you raise money?

How do you, how does the community give you money?

- [Emilie] We talk about it in the community.

My husband, I, everywhere we go, we tell them what we do.

And when people find out that there are kids sleeping on the floor, they want to help.

They want to give you a check, don't they?

- That's right.

So they, they, they can give us a check.

Sometimes people just donate cash to us.

People, churches, post, you know, fundraising events for us like at Vacation Bible Schools, the kids will all bring money.

Local schools like to do penny drives or hat days to raise money.

- That's great.

- The sky's the limit.

- Yeah.

That's wonderful.

Emilie, thank you.

It's been a pleasure doing this today.

I appreciate it very much.

- Well thank you, so much for being here.

- Absolutely.

I think Jim told us that about 350 beds have already been delivered in the last three years.

The 20 beds that you've seen here today are all spoken for.

And the list is a little longer than that.

So the next time they have a build, they'll probably be catching up with kids who don't have anywhere to sleep.

With another "Illinois Story," in Quincy, I'm Mark McDonald's.

Thanks for watching.

(gentle flute music playing) - [Narrator] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

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