By the end of her shift, Jenna Restrepo had lost count of the boards she’d sanded, hauled or stamped.
But it wasn’t the numbers that stayed with her.
“I’m thinking about my own kids,” said Jenna, a product manager at Lowe’s. “I’m so fortunate to put them in their own beds.”
Inside the Charlotte Convention Center, Restrepo joined thousands of volunteers, all rolling up their sleeves for one big goal: build 10,000 beds in 24 hours for kids who’ve never had one to call their own.
For Jenna, this wasn’t just another volunteer shift. It was personal.
“I hope that every child feels as safe and comfortable as my children,” she said.
More than 140,000 children across the United States are currently waiting for a bed, according to Sleep in Heavenly Peace.
“Without consistent, quality sleep, kids fall behind in ways that affect their health and learning,” said Dr. Douglas Kirsch, medical director of sleep medicine at Atrium Health.
So how do you turn stacks of raw lumber into a bed for a child who’s never had one?
It took teamwork and coordination on a scale most volunteer projects never reach.
More than 6,500 volunteers came through in waves, each stepping into a role along 16 build lines, moving bed frames from raw wood to finished product.
At any moment, hundreds of people moved in sync; cutting, sanding, assembling, finishing - each step building on the last.
By the end, all those hands and hours added up to something huge:
Every number told the same story: a bed, ready for a child who’s never had one before.
A place to call their own
For Jenna, the moment that mattered most came after the last tool was set down.
The noise of the tools had stopped. The lines had cleared. In their place: thousands of finished beds, stacked and ready to head out to families all over the country.
Thinking about the kids who’d soon have a bed to call their own, Jenna kept it simple.
“Love. Safe,” she said. “I want them to feel safe and special and loved.”
More than 110 Sleep in Heavenly Peace chapters across 36 states will receive the beds built during the event.
For Lowe’s associates, it was a chance to step out of their usual routines and be part of something real.
For the kids getting these beds, how they were built won’t matter much.
What matters is simple: a place to sleep, and all the possibilities that come with it.
