SOFAS FOR SERVICE

Household furnishings free to Veterans in need

Last year (2017) "Sofas" helped 23 Veterans in west central Wisconsin and southern Minnesota furnish their homes with furniture, beds, kitchen wares, small appliances and other miscellaneous household items.  By the end of August, 2018, we exceeded that number and hope to continue to grow.  There are an estimated 40,000 homeless Veterans in the country with 2500 of them in Wisconsin and Minnesota .

Veterans are referred to us through various sources.  Originally we were made aware of the need through the Veteran's Administration Medical Center in Tomah Wisconsin. But referrals now come from many organizations as well as individuals.  Some of the organizations include the MAC-V (Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans), VAF (Veterans Assistance Foundation), Center for Veterans issues, County VA offices and Veterans Courts and others.

If you have a passion for "giving back", especially to our Veteran Heros, then Volunteering with "Sofas for Service" may be where you'd like to feed your passion!

You can help out with muscle power in the warehouse or helping with picking up and delivering furniture.  Delivering is where the "rubber meets the road".  The feeling of walking into a home that is virtually void of any furnishings and leaving it fairly well furnished with new beds, kitchen wares and furniture from lamps and recliners to wall decor is one that can leave one humbled and emotional, especially if there are young children.

If your passion is on the administrative side of an organization, we can use your help there also.  We are strictly volunteer and have no payroll but are a "non profit corporation" with all the administrative needs any business has from managing a warehouse to tracking incoming and outgoing donations to writing grants and website developement.

We sincerely thank all of the supporters  that have helped us to achieve the success we've had so far-approximately 50 or more Veteran homes furnished. There have been many of you, both with small and with large gifts, that can share in our success.  It costs "Sofas" just under $300 to serve one Veteran (based on 2017 records).  That number doesn't include any consideration for the value of volunteer hours or a large portion of transportation costs which are born by our founders, Pete and Renae Hestekin.  However, the average Veteran receives around $275 dollars worth of home furnishings (consider a used sofa is valued at $20 so it is actually a considerable  number of items).  We purchased 11 new bed sets last year with a queen set costing between $325-$350.

Continuing monetary support is constantly needed.  Monetary contributions can be mailed directly to the address in our contact information.  You can click the donate button on this web page or in our FaceBook page too.  If you make purchases with "Amazon" you can designate "Sofas for Service" as a "beneficiary" in Amazon "Smile" to generate a monetary gift from Amazon every time you make a purchase from them.

Thank you for supporting our Veterans by supporting "Sofas for Service"!