About
For those transitioning out of homelessness or aging out of the foster care system, even the simplest of furniture and household goods are unaffordable. Make it Home was created to solve this problem.
Started by an interior designer, Carolyn Rebuffel Flannery, Make it Home is a non-profit furniture bank that provides gently used furniture and household goods to newly-housed foster kids, formerly homeless families and individuals who would otherwise move into an empty apartment.
By providing furnishings to those formerly in crisis, Make It Home not only creates a true home for its clients, but also greatly increases their confidence and sense of security. These efforts dramatically reduce their chance of returning to the streets and puts them on a positive path.
Why we're Green
9.68 MILLION TONS OF FURNITURE WASTE WENT TO LANDFILLS IN THE US IN 2018
That’s over 19.36 billion pounds (add in carpets and rugs for another almost 5 billion pounds) discarded to sit in landfills in 2018 alone.
For perspective, when we furnish a home, a one-bedroom apartment requires about 1.1 tons of furniture, so (for some quick math) 8.8 MILLION one-bedroom apartments are getting tossed into the trash each year.
Meanwhile, 37.2 million people, or 11.4% of the U.S. population, are living in poverty (2020 U.S. Census) and lack the basic necessities to make a house a home.
We solve two problems at the same time, collecting, repurposing, and curating gently-used furnishings and household goods (saving them from landfill) AND giving them to people in need.