Parishioners help make children’s dreams come true
By Suzanne Weiss | For On Mission
ALLOUEZ, WI — It may come as a surprise that not all children in Northeast Wisconsin have beds.
“I couldn’t imagine children sleeping on the floor,” said Fr. Bob Kabat, pastor of St. Matthew Parish in Allouez.
That was until 2022, when TJ Sorensen, a parish council member, introduced Fr. Kabat and the rest of the parish council to the De Pere chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace. The national nonprofit organization is dedicated to building and delivering beds to children in need, ages 3-17.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s motto is “No kid sleeps on the floor in this town.”
St. Matthew Parish began supporting the nonprofit in 2023.
“Our parish is fully engaged in this charity, from raising funds, to donating bedding, to being part of the builds and even delivering the beds to children in need,” Fr. Kabat said. “This is part of our mission as a church.”
Each July, the parish’s loose offertory is designated for Sleep in Heavenly Peace.
“Every year we do one build with parishioners,” Fr. Kabat said. “We also have a delivery team.”
A miniature bunk bed in the gathering area of the church offers a place for parishioners to donate such items as quilts, blankets, pillows, twin sheet sets and mattress pads.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace is an example of “the Gospel in action,” he said. “It’s so nice to see when the body of Christ connects with the body of Christ. It’s a corporal work of mercy to provide a bed for a child to sleep in.”
St. Matthew isn’t a large parish, Fr. Kabat said, but more than 50 people typically take part in the builds and more than 30 make deliveries. This includes entire families, as well as high school and college students, who often receive school service hours for their work, he said.
“It would be great to have more parishes involved, as the need is great,” Fr. Kabat said.
The bed parts are readied at the group’s Suamico workshop and then assembled in the homes of the recipients.
“The excitement of the children is unbelievable,” Fr. Kabat said. “If they’re helping you to build the bed or helping you put the sheets on, it’s very exciting. It’s their first bed. Sometimes they come up to hug the people who brought it because they know it’s a gift and it’s special. It’s pretty humbling.”
“It’s a big help to the parents or parent who can’t afford it,” he said. “It means a lot to them, obviously, for their children to have a bed. It doesn’t cost them a thing, we just bring it.”
“One day we pulled up to a ranch home that had a big window in the front,” said Sorensen, who recently delivered his 1,000th bed. “We saw four little heads pop up. We let them put the screws in and run the power tools to put them together and build their own bed … and then they got to crawl in.”
He said his reason for joining the Sleep in Heavenly Peace effort was personal.
“The motto I was always taught and still live by is, ‘Service to others is the rent you pay to be here,’” Sorensen said.
Plus, he said, he enjoys it.
“It’s a lot of fun and it all matters because it gets kids off the floor,” Sorensen said.
When he attended his first build more than three years ago, he said he was immediately sold on the program and thought his parish would be, too.
“What a giving parish they are and what a giving pastor,” Sorensen said. “Fr. Bob is the heartbeat of the parish and the heartbeat of the causes.”
The De Pere chapter, one of 20 chapters of Sleep in Heavenly Peace in Wisconsin, has delivered more than 2,500 children’s beds to families in need, refugees and foster homes since February 2021, said Dan Vermeulen, founder and co-president of the chapter.
“We help a lot of families that leave shelters,” Vermeulen said. “We get a lot of referrals from Health and Human Services, school counselors and churches.”
He estimated between 5,500 and 8,500 kids living in the chapter’s service area — encompassing Brown County and Kewaunee County — still don’t have beds.
“We have a way to go,” Vermeulen said. “It’s such a big problem that nobody talks about. A term we like to use a lot is ‘bedlessness.’”
Vermeulen began helping out in Portage when volunteers there tried to convince him that the Green Bay area needed a chapter.
“Being an introverted person, I told them I’m not that guy,” he said. “Every morning, I felt this tap on my shoulder; God tapping me: ‘It’s you.’ I was slow to answer the call.”
Before starting the De Pere chapter four years ago, he consulted two firefighter friends, who often answer calls in poor neighborhoods.
“‘The head count doesn’t meet the bed count,’” he said they told him.
Vermeulen, who is Lutheran, has since encouraged churches of all denominations in the area to participate.
“We give the community a way to give back locally,” he said. “It’s one of those life changing things. It has really affected me.”
For more information see https://shpbeds.org/chapter/wi-de-pere/.