Lowe’s Volunteers Achieve Record-Breaking 1,000-Bed Build for Children in Need

Madelaine Vander Woude
May 17, 2024

 

A team of 1,000 Lowe's red vest volunteers showed up with hammers in hand at the company's corporate office to nail down a record-breaking 1,000-bed build for children in need in partnership with Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a Lowe's non-profit collaborator.  

Chad Sanders, VP, Lumber, and Sleep in Heavenly Peace board member,  was on site all day at the event to ensure volunteers tucked record-breaking goal in tight.  

This little action that we do over the hours of building today will impact a thousand kids, a thousand lives. You might be cutting a board, sanding a board, staining a board, or even branding a board but you're changing a life for years and years to come.

Chad Sanders, VP of Lumber, and Sleep in Heavenly Peace board member

Nationwide 2%-3% of children do not have a bed.  Luke Mickelson, Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s Founder and Head of Development, saw that need 12 years ago and has made it his personal mission to get that number to zero.  

Providing a bed for a child means so much to them. They do better in school. They have a better outlook on life and have friends over. They can have sleepovers. We always tell people we provide more than just a bed. It's a situation that improves family life.

Luke Mickelson, Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s Founder and Head of Development

The efforts to get every child in America a bed have grown leaps and bounds since Lowe’s partnered with Sleep in Heavenly Peace. In fact, 12 years ago Luke says he was building 22 beds over three weeks out of his own garage. Cut to May of 2024, in the parking garage of Lowe’s corporate campus, 200 times that many beds are being built in a single day.  

It's surreal to witness a thousand strangers here today share the same passion I had 12 years ago and still have for helping children get comfortable nights' sleep.

Luke Mickelson, Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s Founder and Head of Development

Bed Build by the Numbers

  • 1,000+ red vest volunteers  

  • More than 13,400 pieces of lumber  

  • More than 74,300 screws 

  • 10 hours of hard work 

  • 1,000 beds built 

  • Beds delivered to 17 chapters of Sleep in Heavenly Peace in 5 different states   

This 1,000-bed building event may be a milestone for both Sleep in Heavenly Peace and Lowe's, but it will soon be just a benchmark. The partnership is set to build 2,000 beds this year at Lowe's Foundation Swing for Charity events. Those numbers become all the more meaningful when you consider the heads of children in need who will soon rest on them.