MAKING IT HOME Volunteer

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Making It Home is a project that serves to transform the empty shell of an apartment into an inviting home for a family lacking housing stability. Every month we help homeless families find and secure permanent housing throughout the Bay Area. Unfortunately, our families lack the resources to be able to afford beds for their kids, a dining room table for family dinners, and basic necessities like dressers to store clothes and desks for homework. It is not uncommon for us to arrive at an apartment to see sleeping bags on cold floors and nothing else. Making It Home ensures that families don’t have to do that again!

Making it Home volunteers will meet on a given move-in day at our storage center in San Francisco, help load a moving truck with furniture that has been pre-determined to meet the needs of the family, and then drive to the location of the family’s new home (within 25 miles of downtown SF), and unload and set up in the apartment. We provide barely used furniture from donors and purchase brand new pillows and linens. We then create living rooms with couches, chairs, coffee tables, and entertainment centers; bedrooms with brand new sheets, comforters, and pillows; and dining rooms with a table and chairs to fit the whole family. It is a truly transformative experience for volunteers, Compass staff, and ultimately the family. Please help us change a house into a home for those who have been missing out for far too long! Those like Teana and David:

Teana and David moved from Compass Family Shelter to an apartment in Vallejo in August 2015. They owned almost no furniture and had a one-month-old baby at the time. Fortunately, Making it Home was there for them and outfitted their entire apartment soon after they moved in. Teana described her gratitude, not only for the furniture, but for the experience itself. She said she felt "pampered" because the volunteers went above and beyond her expectations and did everything from making the bed with perfect hospital corners to fluffing the pillows on their couch. A year later, Teana said, "I can’t explain how happy I felt that day."

Making it Home was just the beginning of Teana and David’s good fortune. Six months later, they won a housing lottery and moved into an affordable housing unit in San Leandro. With the help of friends and family, they were able to move all of their Making it Home furniture into their new place, where they have now lived happily for eight months. Making it Home truly turned an empty apartment into a beautiful and warm home for this new family when they needed it most. But more importantly, the thoughtful ness of the volunteers and the care they put into the delivery day made this family, who had faced more than their fair share of challenges, feel incredibly special.

David and Teana are now engaged and will be married in December, 2016.

Qualifications:

• Must be able to lift furniture such as mattresses, box springs, couches, tables, and more.
• Must be able to transport yourself or carpool with other group members
• Spanish speakers are encouraged to apply