Colleen and Matt Grant say they started the North County Santa Barbara chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace earlier this year to ensure every child in their town has a place to sleep.
"I thought, everyone has a bed. But she showed me that was not the case." said co-president of the North County Santa Barbara chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Matt Grant.
"For a while after my divorce, I was a single mom with a child who had a mattress on the floor and was in need of a bed, so it is just very nice being able to help," remarked co-president Colleen Grant.
Over the past year, the Grants have been out in the community, reaching out to various businesses, organizations and individuals to garner support for their initiative.
"The minute Matt and Colleen came to me, we prayed, we encouraged them, and our church leadership said we want to partner with them financially and anything else we can do to help Sleep in Heavenly Peace. We are all in," said senior pastor at Lompoc Foursquare Church, Bernie Federman.
"It is a lot of fun, actually, to see 30, 40, 50 people maybe that you may or may not even know, get together for a common goal," added volunteer Tim Fredrich.
Other volunteers reflected on having the opportunity to deliver the handmade bunk beds to families themselves.
"They had scheduled some deliveries and asked if I wanted to be a part of that, so my wife and I went out and helped deliver the beds to the families that needed them, and I still think about that and it is very emotional," said fellow volunteer Brad Ellickson.
This past week, the Lompoc Valley Chamber of Commerce also recognized Colleen and Matt Grant for their efforts, commending them with the annual Outstanding Community Support Award.
"Considering we are new, it was pretty amazing," Colleen said.
"The very obvious thing is that we deliver beds to kids that don't have them, and I love that," Matt said. "But there is a second part that is equally important, and that is bringing the community together that is often fragmented these days and don't interact. We are bringing them shoulder to shoulder to help them, help us build these beds for the kids."
As for what's next...
"It is our organization's nationwide event called 'Bunks Across America,' and we are building 60 beds with Team Depot in the Home Depot parking lot on September 10th," Colleen told KSBY.
Matt Grant says in the past 11 weeks alone, their team has hand delivered 139 free beds to local families. He also says the group is working to expand their bed delivery services to reach families in neighboring cities like Guadalupe, Buellton and Santa Ynez.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace's next bed building event will be at the Santa Maria Foursquare Church this coming Saturday.
If your child, or someone you know is in need of a bed, you can find a link to their application by clicking here: https://shpbeds.org/apply/
