Less than 2 weeks ago, the Furniture Bank trucks that delivered your furniture donations to our clients were hit by an incident of vandalism.
Facing the prospect of not making any furniture deliveries to our clients for weeks, our community of friends and supporters reached out to us to help turn lemons into lemonade out of the crisis we found ourselves in… and they gave swiftly and generously.
Today, we’re pleased to announce that the campaign to Keep us Truckin’ hit its goal of recovering the $20,000 loss we incurred owing to the incident – just a week since the campaign launched! That is an incredible achievement by any standard and we are humbled & grateful for all those who donated to ensure our clients were unaffected during our setback.
We especially want to thank Canada Helps, who put together a campaign on our behalf on their site, and Alterna Savings, the Rotary Club of Etobicoke as well as numerous other donors who made significant donations to it. We are also indebted to the services of Leon’s Furniture, 1-800-GOT-JUNK, Collins & Greig Cartage, 1-800-RID-OF-IT, Tallman Truck Centre, Shorncliffe Disposal Services and Elegant Kitchen Gallery, all of who donated trucks and crew to ensure we continue to make everyone of our client deliveries. Thanks too to members of the media who helped to broadcast the incident of vandalism across Canada and spread word of the campaign.
“We have been truly overwhelmed with the response from across the country,” says Dan Kershaw, Executive Director of Furniture Bank. “We are immensely grateful for the concern and support shown by individual donors, businesses and our community partners. Thanks to our old friends and some new ones, we have turned a negative into a positive.”
But our work is not yet done. Not only do we now begin the task of getting our trucks repaired and back on the road, we need to take steps to ensure that our service is not compromised again. That’s why we’re asking donors to continue to donate to ensure no client who visits furniture bank has their furniture undelivered.
Over 100 families a week together with 78 social service agencies rely on our ability to deliver furniture donations in a timely and safe manner. Therefore, moving forward, we need to ensure that our fleet of trucks are adequately protected, our facilities are adequately secured and all necessary steps are taken to continue to keep Furniture Bank trucking.
Help us to continue giving families the dignity, security and stability associated with having a furnished home by donating here or calling us on 416-934-1229 to have your gently used furniture change a life.
