St. Vincent de Paul Society Bed Ministry Helps Many Get a Better Night’s Sleep
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WHEELING -- For the last several years, the St. Vincent de Paul Society's Elm Grove Conference has helped provide people in need something that many consider basic, but some see as a luxury -- a bed.
The society's bed ministry has delivered more than 1,000 beds since it began. And while those who have worked in the ministry have found it tougher to deliver those beds, they say they have been fortunate that numerous businesses and groups have pitched in to help supply people with a comfortable place to sleep.
The organization started slowly with its bed ministry at first in 2016, St. Vincent de Paul Society Elm Grove Conference Treasurer Vickie Joseph said. The organization mainly provides resources to help with utility bills, groceries, gasoline or other issues that come up. Yet in their travels of visiting people, Joseph said society members sometimes would enter homes and find that people, including children, were sleeping on the floor.
"The fact is that a good night's sleep is essential to good health," she said. "If you're not sleeping correctly, and especially for children, somebody that is sleeping on the floor and then trying to go to school ... you can't concentrate when you haven't slept, you know?"
So the Elm Grove Conference started delivering beds to those who needed them. Many are donated mattresses, either from individuals or hotels that are changing out their mattresses.
It's not just mattresses, but bed linens as well, and society members put the beds together and have them ready to use by the time they leave.
Yet in recent years, delivering those beds has become more difficult, Joseph said. Society members are getting older and are no longer able to haul mattresses up several flights of stairs. They were worried they might not be able to continue, but volunteers began stepping up to assist.
Joseph said Livingston Brothers Moving has been wonderful in helping deliver beds, as have the Linsly School and Wheeling Central Catholic basketball teams. The volunteers will deliver to six addresses at a time, with three groups taking two addresses each. The number of mattresses will depend on the number of people at each home.
Joseph said it has been great to see so many volunteers keep the organization's bed ministry going.
"Wheeling in general is a very welcoming community," Joseph said, "especially the young people in school. When you give them a concrete project, they jump on it. They're eager and the kids that came to help us we're just so polite and so so, so nice, so thoughtful. It just does warm your heart. It gives you hope for the future."
It's also heartwarming, she said, to see how much people, especially children, appreciate their new beds. She remembered delivering a set of beds for two parents and eight children, bringing them eight twin beds for the kids. By the time those beds all were built, the kids in the first beds had already set up their spaces.
"One little boy had his little Spider-Man doll, he had him all set up on the bed," Joseph said. "By the time we left, we looked in and saw that he was just so, so happy. He had a place of his own, and a place for Spider-Man."
Donated mattresses must be clean and never exposed to bed bugs. They can be queen-size or smaller. Anyone interested in donating or volunteering can leave a message on the society's voice mail at 304-242-8868. Those wishing to donate mattresses will receive a call back with questions about the mattress' condition. St. Vincent de Paul Society representatives will pick up the beds.