Barb Galbincea
\n Withdrawals from this bank are by the truckload.
\n Cleveland’s first large-scale furniture bank, providing free, donated furniture to the needy, is now open. Although established
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\nas a separate nonprofit, the Cleveland Furniture Bank is supported primarily by the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Greater Cleveland.<\/p>\n
Backers have quietly tested the concept for the last few months before the public rollout today, said Tom Gaghan, executive director of the new venture. Here’s how it works:<\/p>\n
Would-be donors in Cuyahoga County, along with most of Geauga and Lake counties and limited communities in northern Summit, northern Medina and eastern Lorain counties, can contact the furniture bank to schedule free pickup of useable donations.<\/p>\n
Social service agencies screen candidates, verify need and refer them to the furniture bank. The agencies, 60 of which already have signed up, will pay $35 per referral for administration.<\/p>\n
Families and individuals shop for their own furniture, typically choosing a couch, armchair, kitchen table and chairs, dresser, mattress and box springs.<\/p>\n
The furniture bank will deliver the items curbside at the shopper’s home for a nominal delivery fee of about $50, depending on where the person lives. Gaghan said some agencies have said they plan to cover that fee for clients.<\/p>\n
The concept of furniture banks is spreading rapidly nationwide, according to the National Furniture Bank Association, with the number of member operations increasing from 30 to 70 in the last 18 months.<\/p>\n
Don Lawrence, vice president of communications for the association, said more than 100,000 families across the country were helped last year, receiving more than 1 million pieces of furniture. About 95 percent of it came from residential donors; the rest from institutions or retailers.<\/p>\n
In Cleveland, the idea of a furniture bank has been kicked around for years and various organizations have operated much smaller versions, with varying success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barb Galbincea Withdrawals from this bank are by the truckload. Cleveland’s first large-scale furniture bank, providing free, donated furniture to the needy, is now open. Although established<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}