Health & Fitness
New Life for Old Furniture Brings Hope to St. Charles County Families
Hurting families can get gently used home furnishings free from The Sharing Shed. It depends solely on donations from the community - do you have items to contribute for a good cause?
For about 10 years, there has been a group in Lake St Louis that has been collecting used furniture from people moving, people getting new stuff, people down sizing their households, or even from estates.
The Sharing Shed takes this furniture then distributes it to families in need, such as those fleeing abuse situations or recovering from a homeless time in life, or those having lost their furniture in a fire.
All furniture has been donated and then given for FREE to the new family. This ministry was started by Vicki Unser out of her garage and has served over 2500 families in St Charles, Warren, and Lincoln counties with only the help of a handful of volunteers that meet almost every Saturday morning to hand out the furniture and pray for the family receiving the items.
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Many area organizations such as the Crider Center, NECAC, The Crisis Nursery, Our LadiesInn, and area churches refer people to The Shed where they are scheduled for an appointment to come select items they need.
Cloud Nine Mattresses in Wentzville has helped by donating mattresses as well. Many families have no resources for getting big items like beds and couches and this has benefitted them greatly. Social Services has referred parents to come get beds for their kids so they can either keep their kids or get them back from Child Services - a resource that parents would have been lost without.
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This year, The Sharing Shed became an independent 501(c)(3) organization, it has no paid staff or directors - all volunteer - so 100% of the donated items goes to families in need. For The Shed to operate it requires donations of household furniture items. Items most needed are beds, couches, dinning chairs, tables, dressers, night stands, coffee tables, love seats, stuffed chairs as well as small appliances like coffee makes, microwaves, toaster ovens, and blenders.
You can call The Sharing Shed at 636.544.9245 and arrange to drop off items or for a small fee of $5 they will pick up your donations. Donors also get a reciept for their donations. If your neighbors are having garage sales and have furniture items left over, have them conact the Shed and their old stuff becomes some family's new stuff.