HINESVILLE, Ga. () — In Hinesville, dozens of volunteers gathered with a shared mission: to ensure every child in the community has a bed to sleep on.
Alee Shriners teamed up with Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a national non-profit focused on building and distributing beds to children in need. Volunteers assembled numerous twin-sized beds, transforming piles of wood into complete frames within mere hours.
“Typically, we can construct about 30 beds in roughly two and a half to three hours,” explained Terry Cook, president of Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s Hinesville chapter.
Cook also said the need for beds is far more widespread that people might assume:
“It’s estimated that around three percent of the children in any given area sleep on the floor, sofas, or makeshift bedding like pallets of clothes. We’re here to change that,” he added.
This activity also provided a chance for local Shriners to learn about the process directly. Danny Fries Jr., potentate at Alee Shriners, noted it as an educational experience that was well worth it.
“When you have strength in numbers, that makes everything go fast,” Fries said.
All the labor and materials were donated. Cook said the materials alone would normally cost around $250 per bed.
For the volunteers involved, it was more than a service project—it was about giving kids the foundation to success.
“Some of these kids they don’t have a meal, they don’t have a bed and yet we expect them to thrive,” said Cook. “A kid should have a bed.”
While this was the first time the Alee Shriners teamed up with Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Fries said it certainly won’t be the last.
“This is our first but not our last. We’ll do some more.”
