Kids can now ‘sleep in heavenly peace’

ASHEBORO — Every child deserves a bed to sleep in warmth and comfort. An inaugural Bed Build was held Saturday, Sept. 28, in Asheboro to provide 15 beds for children who had been sleeping on the floor.

An organization called Sleep in Heavenly Peace was established in Idaho in 2012 to build and donate bed frames, mattresses and bed clothes to children who didn’t have beds of their own. The 501c3 nonprofit has been expanding across the country and now includes a chapter in Randolph County.

David Millikan, pastor of the Asheboro Friends Meeting, said he learned of Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP) last December while preparing a sermon on peace. He googled a phrase from the Christmas carol, Silent Night — “sleep in heavenly peace” — when the organization’s website came up.

Millikan was communicating with a friend in Melbourne, Australia, who sent him a link to a video titled “Returning the Favor” with TV personality Mike Rowe as narrator. The video was about how SHP was founded.

Soon after, Millikan heard from Denise Owens of Habitat for Humanity about a family with three girls and none of the children had their own beds. That helped him to realize the need to build beds for children.

“There was no chapter in the Piedmont and the closest was in Pinehurst,” Millikan said. “So we went there to learn.”

“We” included Stephanie Wright and her son Jacob Wright.

“That got the ball rolling and we went to Utah for training,” Millikan said. “We decided to go for it.”

After returning to North Carolina, Millikan went to a bed build in Mooresville, headquarters of Lowe’s Hardware, a sponsor of SHP.

“They had tools sitting in a warehouse there,” he said. Then he was asked if he wanted the tools — four pallets of tools and a generator that could be taken to remote areas. Millikan said the cost of the tools was some $7,500.

When applications were opened for anyone who needed beds, Millikan was surprised to find 61 applications had already been received. With subsequent applications, the total of beds requested exceeded 100.

“I had no idea,” Millikan said.

He said a rule of thumb is that 3 percent of the population is bedless, or as many as 4,200 children sleeping on the floor in Randolph County.

The average cost of a child’s SHP bed is $250, he said. That includes the frame, mattress, pillow, sheets, blanket and comforter. The beds can be bunks or individual sleeper.

Volunteers who help build the beds even stain the wood. Millikan said they use 5 percent white vinegar and steel wool that are allowed to marinate for several hours to oxygenate. The resulting stain also repels bed bugs.

Millikan said the beds have a rustic look, all of the same design but not identical. “Each bed should have as many hands on it as possible,” he said.

During the Sept. 28 bed build, Millikan said a women’s quilting group was planning to come. Volunteers don’t have to be experienced in woodworking but will be trained in the various tasks.

The first bed build wasn’t publicly advertised but now the Randolph County SHP chapter is looking for volunteers. Besides building beds, folks are needed to deliver beds and to work the phones, among other duties.

The motto of Sleep in Heavenly Peace is “No kid sleeps on the floor in our town,” with the corollary, “Make every town our town.”

“There are plenty of needs and opportunities to serve,” Millikan said. “We’re using Asheboro zip codes now but will expand to the rest of the county. The problem is not abstract when you put a name and face on a child.”

Millikan said trying to meet the needs of children ages 3-17 will likely continue to grow as the county’s population increases sharply in the coming decades. He said Randolph Rotary has agreed to assist with fund-raising and bed builds, and other civic groups have asked him to speak at their meetings.

“We never said, ‘Are we going to do this?’ ” Millikan said of the local organizers. “It was not an option. The question was ‘How are we going to do this?’ ”

What the local chapter is looking for now is a trailer to carry tools and materials when they go off-site. They are also looking for a building to use for storage.

Donations can be sent to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, NC-Randolph County Chapter, PO Box 206, Asheboro, NC 27204-0206. Checks should be made out to Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

For more information on the national organization, visit https://shpbeds.org/.