Sweeter dreams: My Own Bed project donates children’s beds to families in need

All Justine Lopez of South Natomas wants for Christmas is to make sure her 10-year-old son Victor Ehle Jr. has a bed.

She and Jamal Sanders, her husband and Victor’s stepdad, have been down on their luck this year. The family is still financially recovering from the two months that Sanders was out of work as a groundskeeper. He couldn’t work because he was in a lot of pain due to a hernia, followed by surgery, and then complications from the surgery. Lopez is unable to work because her child needs around-the-clock care.

Lopez and Sanders bowed their heads and prayed in appreciation when two young men showed up five days before Christmas with a white twin bed in a box, a new mattress and a Star Wars-themed comforter and sheets.

Victor, who is developmentally impaired and was diagnosed with autism, looked on as the bed was assembled, letting out sounds the parents recognized as signs of joy. That it came on the morning of Victor’s 10th birthday was the icing on the cake, Lopez said.

“Victor outgrew his other bed,” Lopez said. “And then somebody in our apartment complex gave him one, but we aren’t sure but it might have had bed bugs so we had to get rid of it.”

His father, Victor Sr., died of thyroid cancer when Victor was just 2.

“Even though he wasn’t with him that long, they had a close bond,” she said. “He said words like mama, dada, baba, and juice, but after his father passed away he didn’t ever talk.”

On the day the bed showed up, though, he eked out the word “hi” to Nicholas Winn, founder of the My Own Bed project, chairman of the North State Building Industry Foundation and chief operating officer of Rescue Concrete of Sacramento.

An arm of the North State Building Industry Association, the foundation participates in a federally funded program that provides young adults with training in the trades. As part of their community service commitment, the 24 members of the program work assembling children’s beds for the needy.

In the small bedroom behind the living room, two men worked on assembling the bed, with Victor coming in and out to check on their progress. Once the job was all done, Victor inspected it from the doorway, entered the room and sat down on his new bed, feeling the smoothness of the comforter and top sheet. Victor slowly laid down, and then cuddled under a brand new weighted blanket, content as a children’s show blared from a nearby TV.

The foundation has the manpower to set up lots of beds for the needy through its workforce training program for young adults.

La Vonnia De Loach-Hagerty, director of the foundation’s youth services program, hopes Book of Dreams readers will help raise $3,300 to purchase more children’s beds they expect will be needed next year for other families. She regularly learns about needs from local churches and nonprofit organizations.

The experience of assembling the bed for Victor meant more to Jeremiah Gage, 18, of Oak Park than just putting screws and nuts into the right places.

“This is what I want to do with my life,” he said, “I want to help people.”

He is hoping after he completes his training program with the foundation, he can get a job in the industry that will enable him to do that. On his way home from his assignment, Jeremiah said, “it was the best thing I ever did in my life.”

Gage found out about the workforce training program from his father and was accepted in November. In return for doing community service work like that done for young Victor — and taking lessons from the foundation that make him job ready — he will have help from De Loach-Hagerty to get placed in a company for six weeks. From that experience, he hopes he can get hired permanently in the trades.

Gage is following in the footsteps of his co-bed assembler, Ameir Smith, 21, of Rancho Cordova.

Smith was a star performer from the 2021 workforce training program which led him to get a job with Rescue Concrete where he works as a laborer. He is on his way to a career, he said, noting he was recently able to buy his first car.

Since 2019, De Loach-Hagerty said they have given out 70 beds.

“Parents, grandparents, Child Protective Services cases ... they have all needed help,“ she said.

The very first My Own Bed project was a request to put in nine beds in a two-bedroom apartment for the children of two women who were previously homeless. The project took nine hours.

“We have also had a house where there was not a single piece of furniture. And we have had a lot of cases where children were nesting,” she said. Nesting is where a child lays on the floor to sleep, covering up with all the clothing found in closets.

Every time someone less fortunate is given a bed, Winn said, it reminds him why he does this. He said filling a need as basic as having a decent bed is something a community can come rally around and achieve.

“We had a young family living with us in 2019, and my wife had to spend a lot of money to buy beds for them all. The thought occurred to me that there are probably a lot of families who don’t have the means to afford these,” Winn said.

Winn also brought Victor a wheelchair because he is unable to walk far, the weighted blanket and weighted vest for comfort, and an Aila “Sit and Play” tablet that speaks.

“As long as we can verify there is a child without a bed, we will provide that bed,” Loach-Hagerty said.

How you can help

For more than three decades, The Bee has asked readers to provide a gentle lift to Sacramento organizations helping the needy during the holiday season. Last year, more than $200,000 was raised to help 32 community organizations. To help in this year’s Book of Dreams campaign, you can make a donation at: sacbee.com/bookofdreams