CASPER — For many families, Christmas wish lists for the kids this year are dominated by the usual suspects — drones, laser tag guns, video game consoles and whatever is the latest trending tech gadgets.
Not so for Casper resident Cora Knapp, who said the big wish list item for her 10-month-old son, Atreus, was something more basic: a bed to call his own.
Atreus with his deep brown eyes, budding teeth and a thatch of curly brown hair lived the first seven months of his life in the intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital of Colorado, where he was intubated for pulmonary and cardiac conditions and had multiple surgeries, including a tracheostomy.
It was only after Knapp and her partner Jacob, a steakhouse line cook, were trained to provide around-the-clock care for him that they were allowed to bring Atreus home, where they monitor him in shifts and administer treatments like nebulizer-dispensed steroids.
“He’s bright, and very independent. He’s been a really happy baby considering everything he’s gone through,” said Knapp, tousling his hair while sitting on the floor of their Casper home as a ventilator machine hummed at their side.
Knapp, 21, put her career as a nursing assistant on hold to provide full-time care for Atreus.
As a single-income household with accruing medical bills, they’ve had to tighten their belts, which is why Knapp was thrilled Saturday when volunteers knocked at the door with a new mattress, bed frame and bedding for Atreus.
The bed was donated as part of the Homes for Holidays event sponsored by Slumberland Furniture in downtown Casper in partnership with the Childhood Development Center of Natrona County.
A comfortable bed greatly improves her family’s situation, Knapp said, adding that, "We appreciate all the help we can get."
Eye-Opener For Volunteers
Across Wyoming, hundreds of children make do without beds or mattresses, sleeping instead on recliner chairs, rutted love seats and even bare floors, said Alisha Rone, executive director of the Childhood Development Center of Natrona County.
In its fifth year, Homes for the Holidays has helped 200 of those families find better sleep, with its goal of donating 40 beds every December.
In addition to giving children the gift of a good night's sleep, it’s also blessed volunteers who say delivering the beds to families is an eye-opening experience.
Cherish Novotny, Casper resident and five-time event volunteer, recounted the time she delivered a bed to one local home where the subflooring had rotted out and the children, ages 4 and 5, were “literally on the dirt at that point.”
“They were so happy to get their beds, they were jumping up and down … and the one little guy was like, ‘I'm never getting out of my bed!’” Novotny said.
Moments like those help soothe a wound from the loss of her 3-year-old son, who passed away in 2005, Novatny said.
Tears Of Joy
Another volunteer, Geoff Dean, is a self-declared “sympathetic crier” who said tears of joy are a regular occurrence at the annual giveaway.
“One woman was just overwhelmed. You could see a lot of emotion in her face, her eyes welled up and tears flowed,” Dean said. “There's those sympathetic criers that cry when somebody else cries. And, you know, you just get a little bit choked up when you're driving away knowing that you had a hand in making a kiddo’s life and their parents lives just a little bit easier.”
For volunteers like Sara Bummer, it's important to bring along their own children to experience a type of culture shock, she told the Cowboy State Daily.
“My son at first was opposed to stepping in the house and almost fearful of it,” she said. “He was like, ‘I can’t go in there, mom.’”
Her son’s reaction to a home with concrete floors and walls with exposed studs was a wake-up call for him to realize what some kids have to live with.
“We knew that these kids and families were needy, but when we arrived at the house and saw the conditions this child was living in … they were definitely subpar,” Bummer said.
They hauled in a new mattress and put it down under a naked light bulb in a small corner room, which was barely large enough to accommodate a twin-sized bed.
“My kid has a great room. He's got ‘Star Wars’ on the walls, football stuff on the walls, stuffed animals, a carpet, a lamp,” she said. “For my kids to see that was eye opening and impactful for them, and for me as well.”
Too Many Volunteers
It underscores the power of giving and helps explain why the event has become such a popular draw with volunteers, who are now all but lining up around the block for a chance to deliver beds.
“It’s to the point where we have to tell people that we have too many volunteers. They just love delivering these beds to the child that's assigned to them,” said Alisha Rone, who organizes the event. “And now the volunteers want to bring their families … because these kids who have the (Nintendo) Switches, iPads and everything else, for them to see a kid just happy with a bed, it truly is eye opening to them.”
Behind it all are Tony and Michelle Hager, proprietors of the Slumberland furniture franchise in Casper.
“The biggest piece of this is Tony Hager at Slumberland. He’s the cornerstone of this project. It wouldn’t happen without him,” said Rone.
Hager got his start in furniture in high school, doing deliveries and assembly for a Green River company.
While away for college in North Dakota, he got a job at Slumberland Corporate, which eventually took him to Kansas. All the while he saved with the plan to open a franchise back home in Wyoming, a vision he realized in 2011 with the opening of the Casper store.
40 Weeks
The idea for Homes for the Holidays comes from Slumberland Corporate’s “40 Weeks” initiative in which the company raises money from employees to cover the cost of 40 beds for charity.
Hager is one of the few franchisees to replicate the concept at a local level.
Different from corporate’s crowdsourcing approach, however, most of these beds Hager bought with set-aside profits from his Casper location, something he’s managed even as online shopping chips away from the business of brick-and-mortar enterprises like his, Hager told the Cowboy State Daily.
It’s inspired other businesses to get involved. This year Wyoming Machinery donated 40 bedding sets to go with the beds.
In addition to underwriting the donations, Hager also delivers beds personally, and shares with other volunteers a feeling of reward from the experience.
“You go into their room where they just have a blanket on the floor, and it's really neat to see how excited the kids are to get their first bed,” he said.
Nine-year-old Zoey Bummer, who on Saturday participated in her second Homes for the Holidays, expressed a similar sentiment.
“It always makes my face light up giving things to people,” she said. “It makes me so happy, and it brings me joy and huge smiles on my face.”
