ERTEL
GIBSON CITY — The newly formed Gibson City chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP) will complete its first “community build” on Saturday, April 27, when volunteers from the public will help the chapter’s “core team” build up to 20 beds for children in need in Gibson City and the surrounding area..
In preparation, the first “core team build” was held Saturday, March 16, allowing the chapter’s “core team” — including President Matthew Ertel, Vice President Kara McAdam and her husband, Geoff, as well as Linda Johnson Schmitt, Josh Johnson, Jessica Delost and Dan Brucker — to learn from the national SHP organization to build beds according to the SHP’s standards.
The local SHP chapter is expected to have two or three “community build” days each year. That is when beds are constructed — lumber cut and sanded down and holes drilled — by volunteers over about a three-hour period at an offsite location in preparation for the beds’ eventual delivery to kids’ homes, where they are assembled. Most chapters designate two delivery days each month, with each bed taking about 20 minutes to assemble by a small group of volunteers.
The April 27 “community build” — occurring on National Volunteer Week — will be from 9 a.m. to noon case of rain, the event may be moved or postponed.
“We still need volunteers,” Ertel said in a Facebook post. “No experience is required. Our goal is to build 20 beds. Jobs will include measuring, sawing, sanding, staging, moving boards from outside 10 Doctors Park in Gibson City, just north of Gibson Area Hospital off of 19th Street. In station to station, drilling, assembly, staining and branding. There is a job for everybody. Tools are provided by Sleep in Heavenly Peace. Please do not bring your own tools. We ask that all volunteers arrive by 9 a.m.”
The public can sign up to volunteer online at x. gldn.io/e/vbl7xiHgHIb.
SHP’s mission is “no kid sleeps on the floor in our town.”
All beds the local chapter builds will be donated to children in need in seven zip codes — those for Gibson City, Melvin, Sibley, Elliott, Foosland, Paxton and Roberts.
Each SHP bed — either a twin-size bed or a twin-size bunk bed — costs an average of $240, which includes all materials, a mattress and all bedding. Applications for beds from families in need will be accepted online after April 27.
Donations from the community are accepted. To make a donation, people can visit the SHP chapter’s page on Amazon — www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/39JQYCZC6U4I6 — and select at checkout the “gift registry address” of “Matthew Ertel, Gibson City, IL.”
