Lowe’s Associates Rally Nationwide for ‘Bunk Across America,’ Building Beds for Children in Need

Hundreds of volunteers filled the corner of the parking lot of Lowe's Mooresville store this past weekend, coming together to build 150 beds for kids who right now are sleeping on the floor.

The Mooresville team was part of a nationwide effort benefitting Sleep In Heavenly peace, a nonprofit that provides beds to kids in need. The 6^th annual Bunks Across America bed build in Mooresville kicked off with an emotional message from Lowe's Senior Vice President of Pro and Services Management Ram Krishnamurthy who told the group why this mission is so personal to him.

"I grew up in a very small home in India and I slept on the floor for very many years. That was just the norm and when I think about children, there are still 11 million kids that don't have a bed and they're sleeping on the floor, that affects me personally and I want to give back as much as I can."

Krishnamurthy was joined by more than 200 volunteers, many of them Lowe's Independent Service PROviders taking part in the first annual Lowe's Services Serves event. 25 bed builds across the country hosted similar events in partnership with local providers with the goal of building 8,000 beds in one day.

"Today is all about our service providers coming together to really give back to the community in our first big Services Serves event," explained Amanda Holm, Lowe's Director of Provider Onboarding and Engagement.

"Our team came together with this idea of Services Serves because the providers we work with have been asking how they can give back to the community with Lowe's."

Roxsan Dibene, Lowe's Field Provider Manager, says the volunteer effort means so much to so many. "It's such a good cause, were all happy to be out here working together as a team to deliver such an impactful gift to those in need."

Ryan Hulett with Ryan's Installations has been a Lowe's provider for 17 years and says he can't wait to come back and build more beds next year.

"I think it's fantastic that they can take service providers and put us to good use. I have three kids of my own and to know there are kids out there that don't have beds, I'm all for this."

Chad Sanders is Lowe's Merchandising Vice President over Lumber and also serves as the Vice Chair for the national Sleep In Heavenly Peace board of directors.

"I don't think Sleep in Heavenly Peace would be able to do what we're doing without the sponsorship and the partnership with Lowe's whether it's the local stores, the parking lots, volunteerism, all of those things that Lowe's does are super important."

Earlier this year another Lowe's team built 1,000 beds in a day, an astounding number for Sanders to wrap his head around because he knows the nonprofits humble beginnings.

"The very first bed that was built was 12 years ago in partnership with a local Lowe's store in Idaho. It started off with one bed and a Facebook post and it took five years to build the first 1000 beds and we were able to do that in one day."

"Lowe's is unbelievable, nationally they do a lot, here locally everybody we've met at Lowe's is great," says Dave Byers who co-founded the South Iredell chapter of Sleep In Heavenly Peace in 2019 with his wife Connie. "We couldn't do it without Lowe's."

Connie wants everyone to understand the importance of what they're doing. "We had a single mom who had two kids with cancer and they didn't have beds to sleep in so we delivered beds and two days later one of the girls had surgery and the mother reached back out and said what a blessing the bed was because otherwise the little girl would have been sleeping on the floor. It's just a blessing to help those kinds of families."

It took the Mooresville group just a few hours to build the 150 beds and Mooresville's Store Manager Cory Calloway was thrilled to see it all happen in his store's parking lot.

"This is an incredible experience for our store to connect with all these providers as well as Sleep In Heavenly Peace to provide beds for kids who don't have one. It's an honor for them to use our parking lot to build these beds and I can't wait to see the smiles on the kids' faces when we deliver them, it's gonna be pretty emotional."

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.