An Army of Normal Folks - Luke Mickelson: No Kid Sleeps On The Floor In Our Town! (Pt 1)

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

In 2012 Luke was inspired to build and donate a bed after learning about a 6-year-old girl in his community who slept on the floor. Realizing how widespread the need was, Luke founded Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP), a volunteer-driven nonprofit whose 285 chapters have built around 140,000 beds for kids without them. But there’s many more areas that need chapters and there’s many more kids without beds.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I got home and I just I look at you and I said you know what? No kid and I was was a mixture you know in your football field where you're just you're in between a motion you're like pissed off but you're you're happy at the same time right you know we're gonna we're gonna score that touchdown I don't care who's in my way we're gonna and I just looked at me said you a dremlin just pop and just pump and I just said almost mad I said there's no kid that'slin just pumping through. Just pumping. And I just said, almost mad. I said, there's no kid that's going to sleep on the floor. In my town, if I have anything to do with it.

Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and I'm a football coach in inner city Memphis. And the last part, unintentionally led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called undefeated.

I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people, a nice suit, stalking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox. But rather by an army of normal folks, us, just you and me, deciding, hey, I can help. That's what Luke Michelson, the voice we just heard is done. Lucas, the founder of Sleep in the Heavenly Peace, whose 285 chapters have built over 138,000

beds for kids who don't have one. They're the largest bed building charity in the world, and it all started from Luke learning about one girl in this town who didn't have a bed. I can't wait for you to meet Luke, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Luke, Mikkelson. How are you, man? Good, sir. How are you?

Welcome to Memphis. Thanks, man. Nice to meet you, by the way. Nice to meet you, too. So, you missed your first flight. What's up with you? Oh, man. You know, you wake up all excited, and things can turn on a dime.

We were driving home visiting some friends out here in North Carolina and we hit this pothole so hard that I'm surprised it'd blow a tire, but you know, we made it home and everything was fine and it sat for a day. Until this morning. Oh yeah, of course, right when you get in the car, you drive in, then the cars go off and it was terrible.

So I appreciate the struggle around and making it. I thought since you recently moved from Idaho to Charlotte, you just didn't know where the airport was. Well, there's some truth to that. We typed the old search into the Google search and it took us to like this. Oh, granted, we're already late. So we're hauling butt to try to get to the airport on time.

No one we had to park, we had to get in a shuttle, all all this up. First time we've flown out of Charlotte with our own vehicle, right? It took us to like the service area, all totally on the opposite end of this airport. So we had a spinner round. So you're saying the Charlotte airport's a little bigger than out of who falls? A little bit. A little, a little while. Well, but welcome to our podcast. I cannot wait to tell people about sleep and heavenly peace. But before we do that, as you know, this is an army of normal folks. And we talked to normal folks that do normal things in their life. And then somehow trip around and find something extraordinary. And that is certainly your story, but first, who are you?

Where do you come from, man? Well, I tell everybody, look, I'm just a small farm kid from Idaho, and that couldn't be more true, you know. Idaho Falls, is that Twin Falls? And actually it was a small town out of Twin called Kimberly. If anybody knows where that's at, then you know Idaho. It's kind of like one of those.

He calls Salute Town down population 744? Not that close, but population 3000. So I grab it. It's definitely a salute. Oh, yeah. Oh, well, there's, trust me, there was like three bars and one stop sign. That tells you anything. I got it. But you know, it was, it was a great. It was a small, like any small town, right? You know, you knew everybody, which is pros and cons, but growing up there was great. You know, I was raised by a single mom, you know, so what your dad got. So, well, when my parents divorced, I was freshman and he kind of stayed by, you know, um, he wasn't much in our, in the kids' lives at the time.

He was a nice guy, you know, my dad meant a lot. He meant, uh, he meant well. let's put it that way, you know, just one of those guys that struggled internally with some depression and things that nature, but it was a testament to my mom. She was one of those gals that, you know, I'll put her up against anybody, you know, tough woman.

Oh, real tough woman, and she grew up on a farm. She actually raced quarter horses back in Grace. She's a cowgirl. Oh yeah. You don't mess with her. She's a siblings. She got siblings. We do.

I do. So I've got an older brother, two older sisters and younger sister. And my older brother. Oh, there's five of you. Correct. Yeah. And she had all of us.

Yep. Raised us all. Pretty much on her own. My older brother was a little out of the picture. So it was me and my three sisters and my mom. So, what did your mom do for a living? Funny. So she picked up jobs left and right, but her main income was she was a secretary at the school, which was really funny because when I went to elementary, she was of course the principal of the elementary's secretary. Then I went to middle school, you can imagine she got a promotion to the middle school secretary, then I went to middle school, and you could imagine she got a promotion to the middle school secretary,

then I went to high school, and she was a superintendent secretary, which the office was in the high school. So I was never able to ditch a day, she just had to ask for a wasn't I was there. How does a mom on a secretary's income raise four, five kids? Yeah, it's tough. You know, luckily we had a lot of great friends. I mean, I remember Christmas one time my mom went out to get the mail and of course there was $1,500 in cash just in an envelope. We knew where it came from, you know,

the family that helped us. But that's how we got along. You know, and there was many times my mom worked multiple jobs and us kids had a help. I mean, I remember after basketball games or football game, we get home at the nine o'clock at night. And what you do, you packed up and you went over and you cleaned, wrested Valley potatoes.

It was just an office we cleaned every night. Did you ever wonder if you're going to get a meal? You know, there was sometimes my mom hit it very well. I remember one time, we got kind of an argument, you know, me, a teenage kid. And mom, of course, right? And I remember I just, I wanted to go to this, this quarterback football camp, so bad,

I just wanted to go and cost too much. It cost too much. And I remember she said, she kind of went off crying and she came back and she says, this is my last hundred dollar bill, you go to your camp. I just, I mean, I broke down and I said, there's, right then I learned a lesson, right?

I learned, you know, it's a little bit of humility and I learned the value of what a mom would do for her son. And of course, I didn't go, right? You know, in fact, I think I went out and mowed lawns to pay her $100, you know. I just, it was a good education for me to work with, you know, very little. She grew up in an apartment or a house.

We grew up in a house, yeah. My parents divorced when I was 13, so I think part of that, she kept the house, which was a big blessing for us, you know. Did you share rooms? I did for a little while, and then it was a brother. Yeah, with a brother, and then I had a cousin come live with us for a while, and... Of course, your mom's broke broke so let's bring in somebody. Oh yeah, you know, that's not really how it works.

Yeah. But you know, yeah, it was a great home. It was a great home. Did everybody sleep in a bed? Everybody slept in a bed in your house. In our house. Yeah, but it's interesting, my father left home when I was four. And I didn't have any siblings, but I know very well what it's like to look at your mom's

struggle. And I bet you shared this, is that I really didn't know we were broke. Yeah, I just, this is, I'm looking back on it now. I know we were broke and my mom struggled for every week's paycheck and every meal, but she kept it on the table when we grew up in apartments. But I know what it's like that you have a paper out, you pick up our jobs, I used to wash cars,

whatever I could do to hustle up a little bit extra money because I didn't want to ask my mother for anything because I felt guilty about it. I don't want to ask my mother for anything because I felt guilty about it. So Luke went on to serve a Mormon mission in Texas for two years. He worked at his stepdad's water treatment company and rose to become head of cells and marketing. He got married and he had three kids. He seemed to be living the American dream, but you know, I think you just hit a point in life where you're like, okay, you know, you reflect.

That was about 34, 35, and I think we all kind of sit there and reflect some people call midlife crisis. Maybe that's what it was. But I remember just thinking, you know, who am I? What, what, what is this life about? Well, I was, I was a normal, who am I? What is this life about? Who are you? Well, I was a normal, more happy. In some respects, yes. I had just started what I call my faith crisis at that point, which is probably the biggest turning point, but it is a combination of many things.

My job, I had come out of a sales position in the field working with people. Now I worked, I worked for my salesman at this time, but it just didn't have the same savvy of what I enjoyed being out the field. You know, it was a different challenge and I think I was very successful, I grew the company almost doubled in sales in a couple years. And so I felt I was successful at it, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. You were fulfilled. I wasn't. I wasn't.

And then you throw a huge faith crisis on it. You know, I was LDS. What does that mean? Well, I was LDS Mormon my whole life. I mean, served my mission and all this. And, and, and, and once you're pretty involved. Very involved. Yeah.

In fact, at the time, I started SHP. I was what was called the Young Men's President. So I was over the Young Men's program ages 12 to about 17 18. 12 to 17 is Young Man. Yeah, Young Men. Yeah. It should be an idiot boy program. Well, it's a thing is a 12 to 17 year old young. It's boy scat. So that'll tell you how yeah. Yeah. Young idiots program. Oh yeah. I hear you're young Jack program for the LDS chapter Absolutely, so you're you're really involved. You're like and you're doing the Boy Scout thing correct Yes, I do know this LDS is we'll involved in the Boy Scout

It used to be not so much Since they started changing some of it. We're not gonna get into that on this show. Well, we might. I mean, it could be interesting. We could all talk about the changes in the Boy Scouts, but at one time, I do remember that LDS was really involved in Scouting. So that's what you were doing.

You were kind of mentoring adolescent boys. I call them Jack, you call them young men, and they were all through the scout program and you were their U-Tractor. Correct, yeah I was, I was, I wasn't a scout master. I was benched, what they call it, ventured leader if you're from out of the scouts, but I was over the boy scout leaders, right? Well, a part of that position, if you will, is we'd have auxiliary meetings with other Authorities in the in that particular congregation and we talk about various things some of which were People in either in the congregation or just in the community that the church was either helping with other things or needed help And there was a family there was a family where the lady she was the local school bus driver You know for the elementary everybody knew knew her. Made no money. Made off, of course not.

And what you didn't know was that father was suffering from some mental health, right? Couldn't hold a job for anything. They lived in this, really run down. In fact, from Kimberly, I didn't even know where it was. That's how run down and hidden it was. And this is in Kimberly, next to Twin Falls. I keep calling out.

That's a common point. But the point is, if this person lives in somewhere so rundown that you don't even know where it is in a town of 3000, that's really bad. It's pretty down. Yeah. And give her every kudos she deserves. Working as best she can.

I believe they had three kids at the time, but in this auxiliary meeting, they were talking about this family and how they were helping with the rent and all this stuff. And it came up that the kids didn't have any beds. And I mean, like maybe some of you listening might, you know, kind of cock your head back going, what, you know, every child has a bed,

and or at least a mattress of some sort, right? So, you know, I kind of perked up and I said, well, tell me a little bit more about that. Well, you know, they just, the kids aren't, they're just sleeping on the floor. And it, my first thought was like, you gotta be kidding me. No one can get these kids some beds.

I read dickiness as that. I said, tell you at least a mattress. Or, yeah, at least a mattress, yeah, yeah, something, you know. I said, the boys, boys and I'll take care of that. And so, you're a boy group, not your sons, but your- Correct. My boy scout group, right? Your president, the president of the check. The Jack Cubs got it.

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that's really not what it's about. You get all that cool stuff and we're going to provide all that stuff. But the truth is, we're trying to grow the army of normal folks and have a greater impact on the country. And with the premium memberships, we can fuel our marketing efforts to grow. This podcast speaks at number 10 on Apple's podcast chart and all of the US, which is absolutely crazy. It's not about me, it's about the guest and it's about you. So we've decided to set an exciting new goal of trying to be on Apple's top shows chart

for our entire first year, which will mean more tension, more listeners, more Army members, and most importantly, more impact. But we need you, as always, so go to normal folks.os and click on Premium if you're down to We'll be right back. So we met in as Scout position go or Scout meetingo, you know, you want the boys to plan this stuff, right? That's because you're preparing them to be a goal. Exactly. So you kind of lead them to water here and they had some great ideas They were like, hey, let's you know, can we let's go buy a bed? That was the simplest one Or let's go find one. I think my cousins got one. Yeah, you know, and all good stuff. Oh, all great stuff, you know, and I don't know, Bill, the thought came to me, you know, and I just got done building this

in my third day of my garage. I just got done building my wife at the time's hair salon, right, she was a hairdresser. So I built, it was the biggest project I've ever done and I had a lot of help on it, but it was fun and I enjoyed it. So I kind of have this building mindset, right? I don't know, the thought came to me and says,

you know, here's a great opportunity to take these AKA Jack, and they were great boys by the way. Yeah, of course they are. My sons are great, but they're still Jack. I think that age every hour, I was, for sure, and I know you were. Oh yeah. Look at your mud head itself.

I know you were playing football and everything. So anyway, go ahead. I thought, here's a great opportunity to get an Xbox controller out of these boys' hands. Yeah, that's all they talked about. And go build a bed. And go build something. Best we don't need that.

Template for, we got wood. No idea. No hammers. Hard drills, nail screws. Yeah, build a bed. And my daughter had a bunk bed, and I just remember sitting in that meeting going, it'd be fun to build a bed.

I think I can do that. And so when I got home from that meeting that night, I mean, I went straight to my daughter's room with the tape measure and pen and start measuring this thing out, you know. Oh yeah, yeah. And our design is very similar to that bed as it stands there. Before we go to that, which we're definitely

tovint into that, because that's really the crux of The story. Yeah, you said something earlier that I'm trying to connect the dots on We're in the middle of all this you have in a faith crisis because frankly you seem dolled in Great question, you know I don't I'll only speak for my experience of my faith crisis, but you know, it's quite, quite embarrassing, really, you know, here you. I wanna embarrass you, but it's important that people understand that we all have crisises,

but it doesn't prohibit us from being successful in our endeavors. No, and what I mean by embarrassing, I'm not embarrassed at all by it. But when here I was this AKA spiritual leader for these boys, president, Il Capitone, right? Mission guy. Mission guy. Praise your whole life.

Yeah, raise my whole life. I served in what they call elders corn presidencies. I served in all the box. Correct. You know, I'm supposed to be dialed in I'm supposed to be this guy that That comes to these boys or these boys can come to me with a testimony strong enough to build their own You know bill I don't think I've ever shared much of this but I felt really inadequate and I think for the first time in my life, I really paused and decided, you know what? I'm going to stop putting stuff on the shelf.

I'm going to stop kiddin' around here, maybe even kiddin' myself, and really face these questions I have. You know, maybe even as simple as who is God, right? I decided to lack about a term really man up and be completely honest with myself. And when I did that, I realized, yeah, I don't really know what I thought I knew, which really dove me into a lot of personal, in internal reflection spiritually of what did I know, what did I believe, what was important, right? And all of this was going on.

We had this service project where we built this bed with these boy scouts. It was such a great experience. You know, I was, I was feeling my gap in my heart with this service project because I love service and what better way to service a kid? I mean, it was great. And even, here's a 12 year old kid. A bunch of, we had deacons at the time, or boy scouts, building beds.

They couldn't get enough. And I thought, man, you know, hard it is to keep the attention span of a 12 year old kid. No kid. Servicing, you know. Especially without something electronic on a screen. No kid. And it just shocked me. And I like to think is because they knew what it was going to. And I think it was a lot of that. But the activity was fun too.

You know, we just had fun. And then after long story short, after it was delivery, I didn't go on the delivery of the boys and their parents went. But I heard the amazing stories of how the boy, they shared in church the next day of how fun it was, and you know, it's somewhere crying. And here I come home after church, and I'm sitting on the couch, and I'm going through this faith crisis, this work insufficiency, this whole that's being developed,

and my kids are talking about all these presents that they know I'm not gonna get them. I'm not gonna get you another Xbox, we're not gonna get that amazing control. I mean, I hear all this stuff was coming in and I had just experienced this amazing service project. And I just experienced these boys who forgot about Halo and forgot about their Xbox

and focused in on something neat. I want that for my kids. And found out how fun Southwestern was gonna be. skinny exactly I wanted my kids to learn the joy of service and the appreciation what they had so let me just get this right okay you're 37 is 35 35 at this time you've got a good paying job where you're working and doing what you're doing and you're raising your children, you're involved in your place of worship and somehow you are unfulfilled at work and trying to figure out halfway through life what you really think about the world and life and your place in it.

Honestly, you're struggling a little bit. Yeah. Well, you know what that makes you? Probably human. Some exactly what it makes you, bro. Makes you normal. Yeah. I mean, I think there's no, I believe despite really pretty facades that we all put on, we all question

in some level where we've come from, what we believe, if this step was right, if that step was wrong, we all have conflict in our lives. We all have sadness and joy and triumph and defeat and everything else, but it is weird when you get to be a certain age and it happened for me really around 40 is you kind of, you know, if it's at 50 and I figure if I'm lucky being the fat redhead of a guy that I am in the hard life I've lived if I make it to 80 I'm gonna do pretty well. Yeah, which means I'm 64 and a half percent dead I mean, it's just true. Yes, just truth and so at 35 you're

Somewhere between 40 and 50% dead And I think it's only natural to look at your life and start wondering about what your where you are, what your thought presses are. And so this is an army of normal folks. All of what we talked about has done nothing but establish that you're just a normal dude. Fight in normal insecurities and everything else, trying to do the right thing, trying to make living, trying to provide for your family, and then oddly you find this level of happiness building a bed. I mean, how cool is that, right? And watching a bunch of young deacons or whatever you call them, putting down consoles and helping

building that and learning what selflessness is about. Well, and don't get me wrong, there was some selfishness about it too. When people volunteer, there's always a little bit of selfishness behind it. And of course, there is. For me, here I was plagued with the thought that I'm being led down the Satan's path because I was losing my testimony about my faith and all this you know and And I just kept thinking if that's true then Does does a guy being led down that path really have this much desire to help a child and

and it It really dawn on me I guess Bill I took that moment and said, you know what? I really, honestly, for the first time in my life, I'm gonna be honest with myself, I don't care what religion you or I or whoever is. I don't care.

Great. If that brings you happiness and joy, awesome. I couldn't tell you whether it's right or wrong. I'm not gonna guess whether it's right or wrong. I'm not going to guess whether it's right or wrong. But what I do know for a fact without whatever, whatever, the idea to you believe in, helping a child get a bed is just the right thing to do. That's beautiful. And I'm going to, I'm going to share two things with you. One, this is not a theological podcast and if, you know, I guess after this, we might as well talk about politics, but not in Texas.

But not in Texas. We're close to Texas. But, you know, some would say that when you do a bunch of good deeds, it provides favor for your salvation. And I would say, if that's true, how does a stillborn child ever make it down? Exactly. And if it's not for grace, there is no chance. And so it's not what we do to earn favor. It's that we do things in appreciation of favor of grace. Yeah. And the flip side to that is how good it feels when you can share that grace with another human being. Yeah.

And that leads to, that leads to all kind of conflict resolution in my opinion. And what I mean by that is personal conflict resolution because I agree with you, the things that I've done for other people in my life have been far warmer soup for my soul than the things that I've received in this life. And I think that's a beauty of an army of normal folks is normal folks struggling to just do life and then they find something to do for somewhere on one else and the payoff is they get 50 times more out of it than they put into it.

And it sounds like that's your experience. Well, and I also learned, at least my view, and I appreciate you're exactly right. I love that comment. I looked at what I was doing is, you know what, too many of us, I think, let's just call a spade of spade. You go to church, you sing the hymns, you read your scriptures, you know, you're doing these things because you're told that's what the right thing to do. Whether it is not great, I don't care. But that doesn't really help anybody in this world right now. And I just felt like, you know what, I appreciate that all those things may be in the favor of the Lord and me, you know,

whatever's gonna happen in this life, after this life builds a mansion in heaven for me. Okay, that's great. But what I do know is there's a child in this world right now that needs my help, right? I can pray, I can read my scriptures, I can be as righteous as I want, but if I don't lift a finger, then that poor kid is going to suffer. Yeah, it almost seems like it's a little hypocritical to sit in. Now, one of the notes, it actually Alex sitting over here on the controls, one of the reasons

he and I even are hanging out together doing this thing is I said in an interview that there's overpasses in every major city that when you drive over it, you look down there and you see the abject helplessness and loss and despair and hopelessness and poverty. And when you drive over it, it's that overpass you don't want a flat tire on, right? And when you look over it, you think, gosh, somebody had to do something about that.

And then you keep driving, as if that empty sentiment actually matters. Right. The thing you should be saying is, gosh, what can I do about that? And your point's well taken is that there's all kinds of things in your faith that are good for your soul and good for other souls. But faith without action is just hypocrisy. Yeah. You know, my mom used to say great Sam, I'm sure it's not just hers, but she said good intentions are a pave way to hell.

And I never really understood that until that exact thing. We can have all the great intentions in the world, but if you don't lift a finger, what really good are they? So you delivered your first bed to the bus driving ladies family who lived in a house in a town of 3,000 that was in such a bad place nobody even knew where it was. Correct. And you saw the excitement in your young jack-up group's house over what they did.

And you didn't even get to go deliver it, but you heard the stories and you thought Nobody in my town is gonna sleep on the floor Well, what exactly what really happened there was sitting in that couch after I heard those kids talk and you know again Well a culmination of work and faith and all this stuff and just feeling down and I could feel myself Just kind of going down this dark hole again like like I had been and in and here this stuff and just feeling down and I could feel myself just kind of going down this dark hole again, like I had been in. And here this whole week, I just built this bed with these kids, I was just on fire.

I was not fired up and then I could just feel me sink. And then when my kids said that, when they said, Dad, you know, hey, we want another Xbox. Something click, Bill, I just went, I gotta get my part of my French off this couch and get my kids out in a garage, and we're gonna build another bed. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know anybody that needs it, right?

And so I got up the couch, build bed building therapy. It's what you're into here, man. Seriously, yeah. And we went out and I had some extra wood, right? So we built another bed with my kids. You know, I got pictures of my nine-year-old son, my six-year-old daughter, my one-year-old walking around of Drill. I mean, it was just a great time with my kids. It was a great

time. It was great. It was a great time. It was a great time. Yeah, I was great. But then we were done. I had this bunk bed. I had no idea what to do with it. And so I was someone recommended, you know, why don't you just put it on Facebook? And I said, hey, are you kidding me? Like the only thing I put on Facebook are pictures of my sturgeon that I catch. That's it. That's it.

Yeah. And so I said, okay, I will put it on one of these bicelled trade groups, you know. And really the message was, hey, my family and I built this bed as a Christmas project. We want to give it to another child or a family that has children sleeping on the floor, does anybody know it?

And I had no idea what kind of response I would get. I figured there'd be a lot of, or a free bed. Oh yeah, hand up, I'll take it. Although we got some of that, I was shocked of how many people contact me and said, what are you doing? How can I help?

Can I bring some pillows, can I bring some food, can I bring some presents? It was kind of a really neat thing. It really fired me up for it. And it wasn't until one of my, actually I served my mission, she was in my mission, another sister missionary, a long time ago, obviously, called me up, she says, hey, I've got the perfect family for you.

We'll be right back. She told me about it, called my Haley story. Haley and her mom were homeless and they'd been living in a car. Haley had never known a bit. She'd slept in the back seat from the wrong place. She was six. Six years old. Six years old.

And had never known a bit and was sleeping in a car. Correct. And this is in Twin Falls, Idaho. They actually lived in Berlin. In Twin Falls, Idaho has this idyllic, seemingly Norman Walkwell filled to it when I say Twin Falls, Idaho. Well, it's called,

you don't think of homeless people in cars. I don't, I mean, I don't. It's Idaho, I thought everything was okay in Idaho. Oh, yeah, well, and this is a very wealthy, fairly wealthy community. That's what I mean. It's like a retirement community. I mean, it's called Twin Falls

because it's got a deeper waterfall than Niagara Falls. I mean, it's really neat. Yeah, I get that. It's beautiful. You just, in twin falls, I mean, if you were saying Chicago, okay, or Milwaukee or, I'm telling you, I had no, or even Boise. Yeah, I had no idea. I had no idea. Okay, so she tells you about Haley, her rest of the girl, little girl. Yep. And so we're like, absolutely.

This is the one we're great. But me and my buddy went out to deliver this bed to Haley. Now, at this time, they finally had a house, right? They just barely, I mean, moved in a couple of days before that. And Bill, I walked into this. Were they written? I don't know.

I don't know how they got a house. They got a house apartment or? It was a house. It really, really run down. How do you gonna imagine? Hey, Lee and her and her mom and that's it. Yeah, they there wasn't another daughter there. I didn't get to meet. But again, a single mom probably got a job somewhere and maybe a little extra help from the government or something. Yeah, finally got into something. I think the local church kind of a rundown thing in the local church.

It was helping. Yeah. I mean, so and I dealt with homelessness before. I've seen it, you know, what not. But when you walk into a home with the thought of a child and seeing it through a child's eyes, it took on a whole new meaning to what was inside the house. Nothing. I mean, nothing.

There was a hot plate with a can of soup on a milk carton to what was inside the house. Nothing. I mean, nothing. There was a hot plate with a can of soup on a milk carton. That was it. That was the only thing in the house. They don't have a stove. They had a built-in stove and they had a refrigerator. So that was it. But there was no couch table chair, not even a chair. TV. No, of course not. And so I was like, oh my gosh. Literally, literally nothing. Nothing. Four walls. No, it was four walls. Well, it was walls on the floor. But Haley, the six year old girl, was just so excited.

A to interact. She was one of these just joyful kids. At least she was around us. Had no idea why we're there. And it doesn't know me from Adam. And says, come look at my room, right? You know, be walking to a room and you can imagine. I mean, there's holes in the carpet and scratches on the walls.

Kind of a nasty. Yeah, I mean, there's probably some government just to house. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Right. And in the closet, there was used toys and dolls and stuff that I'm sure she got donated to her and stuff like that.

But what stopped me was in the corner was a pile of clothes and that was, I was where she slept That's her mattress. She had made the words at the close. She also wore exactly so Haley's routine Well, she'd come home from school take a close off put her PJs on sleep on whatever clothes were there And then repeat and go to school the next day. She literally slept on her clothes. Correct. Or she wore her bed to school Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. She wore her bed to school. That is terrible.

I don't know. And I was so shocked at the time because I'd never seen that before. I mean, my gosh, what child doesn't have a bed? That doesn't even have a mattress of some sorts. And so we got pretty excited about bringing this bed in. Now, we couldn't fit it through the door. Back then, we didn't, we brought them in

as a sumble that we could. So we could. We could learn. Oh yeah, I had to make turns around corner stuff. It was December 10th, it was freezing, you know. So we're taking the headboards off and he was, so we bring them in and you could see little Haley, like trying to figure out what we were doing

and then when it got together and not that she realized a bed. She just kind of blew up I just was did it did you have mattresses? Oh, yeah, we have we do the whole we do the whole nine yards Yeah, we don't leave a house unless they actually have her first night sleep because of what you and your kids did in your garage Yeah, and I've never seen a a child hug and kiss a bed before. And if that wasn't enough to just wipe the tears away, I looked up at the mom. Now, here's a single mom,

six years of struggle, trying to provide safe, probably pretty tough. Oh my, oh, she's a tough lady, really neat lady. Just ballin' her eyes out. And she really got emotional when we start bringing pillows and the sheet sets and the quilts and stuff for her for her daughters, because she didn't expect that. And that's when it hit me. And I'll be raised by a single mom too. I... It really struck home. Now I was very fortunate.

I didn't have to experience that, but I wasn't far from that. And I got on the car. You know, when it was about a 30 minute drive from my house, me and my buddy were Jordan Allen were in the car and when we didn't say much to each other for 30 minutes. And final shock, total shock, total shock. And overwhelmed, just spiritually, emotionally. It was just, I mean, too adult football playing buddies crying in their big truck coming home is probably one of those things

where I wish I had a camera or glad I didn't, rather. But I remember I got home and I just, I looked at Jordan, I said, you know what? No kid. And I just, I look at Jordan, I said, you know what? No kid. And I was, it was a mixture, you know, in your football field where you're just, you're in between emotional, you're like pissed off, but you're happy at the same time, right?

You know, we're gonna, we're gonna score that touchdown. I don't care who's in my way. We're gonna, and I just looked at him, I said, you know what? A Dremlin just pumping through you. Just pumping, and I just said, almost mad. I said, there's no kid that's going to sleep on the floor in my town if I have anything to do with it.

And right then, starting that day on, I went to different stores, you know, home depot, landed at Lowe's. The guy at Lowe said, I told him what I was doing, right? And he says, 50% off anything you want. And I was like, oh my gosh, so we took, I mean, I took my whole Christmas fund.

And we ended up building 22 beds. 22. 22 beds, and delivered them all before Christmas. Hold it. What was the date when Haley got her bed? So I built my first bed December 7th. So how you built 22 beds in 14 and 18 days and delivered? Oh yeah.

It was pretty good. Oh no. All you did was build bunk beds. Oh, it was all I did the whole three weeks of Christmas. And it was funniest. Like, there was nobody was getting their water checked You're building beds Well, I had to do it at night you know and I had friends come over and help me and that was a fun part too I was I was reuniting with

20-year-old friends I hadn't seen some high school because they saw it on Facebook and they wanted to come in and help I mean I guys driving my buddy came down from Boise to come help me build How far is that two hours? No kid no kid. He'd come down and stay the night. We build a couple of it. And it was really funny. It's drinking a beer while you build. Yeah, we were more and we didn't drink beer at that time. I apologize. Not even coffee. Maybe a lot of monster. I don't get how that works. But, um, but what was coolest is, you know, it was fun.

I'm a vegetarian. We drank a lot of beer, filled with this. It's probably been... Everything's okay with our version. Well, as we built them, we got a little bit better and a little bit better. So I remember one time, I'm like, oh my gosh, we just built. Now, not sanded or stained, which took some time, but we erected a bed in two hours.

Yeah, it's like... It was unbelievable. It's an Ascar stuff. Yeah, it's like, it was unbelievable. It's an Ascar stuff. No, it's just, it used to be. Now we build a bed, we just did a build. Of course, we had a lot of chapters there. We built a bed every 32 seconds. Yeah, we're gonna talk about that a minute.

Okay. So you built 22 beds in 17 days. And at this point, it's no longer just build a bed for a kid in your garage. It's become kind of a thing. So you got these 22 beds out and you know it's a thing now, so when did you name it? That's a funny thing. I get the slogan, nobody sleeps on the floor in my town, some white town.

No kids sleeps on the floor in our town. No kids sleeps on the floor in our town. Does that still the slogan? It's the mission statement now. And I got a funny story about that. I'll tell you that in a minute. All right, we'll tell me that now. Okay, okay, I'll tell you that.

Let's go. Well, it was such a meaningful motto to us that we didn't have a mission statement. And I mean, I've run businesses before and I just didn't, I wanted my mission statement to really be as simple and clear as possible. So, synced. Yeah. This is what we're doing.

And it was funny when I was named a CNN hero in 2018, of course, she did the whole TV thing and blah, blah, blah. Well, the next day they invited the 10 in Heroes to a classroom and they had like CNN's head of media there and they were they were going to go over some things mostly prepping us for any interviews that we were ultimately going to be doing in the next year. Sure. Well, oh. Because you don't want to screw up the CNN program if he was.

Oh, I don't know how to do those. Oh, yeah, exactly. Been through that before and I screwed up a lot. because you don't want to screw up the CNN program if he was you better know how to do that then through that before and I screwed up a lot of Sometimes I screwed him up on purpose No, I don't see that about you telling you how to answer things if that's not how I want to answer or not just Didn't well, that's what they taught you actually they're like, I know that answer anything then they're done that You don't like it don't answer no, I'll answer it. You just might not like my answer. I love it. So we, they kind of went around the room and asked a funny question. They said, so let's go over your mission statement because that's the first thing you know, it needs to be, it needs to tell the elevator pitch. It is. It's what, what,

you hear it? You understand it. Yeah. The consumer, you know, in business world or in this case, a sponsor or just a person needs to understand your business from their mission statement Well, you know, and everybody went around the room. It's fine. They came to me and I could see the guy kind of stop and he goes That's your mission statement Yeah, and I said yeah, I said but my mission statement isn't about my organization talking to the individual or the community It's meant for the community to say it. Because child bedlessness is gonna be solved by the volunteer in the community,

not by Luke Nicholson and Twin Falls, I know. Yeah, so what you're saying is an army of normal folks. Oh, absolutely. 100%. No kid sleeps on the floor in our town, not your town, in our town. So it doesn't make any sense for me as a- No kid sleeps on the floor in our town not your town in our town So it doesn't make any sense for me is it no kids sleeps on the floor in our town if all of us would spend a little time Getting together and fix it. Yeah, absolutely if they had it so evident

So we're not gonna call government and we're not gonna write for a grant And we're not gonna petition the mayor and the city council on all the other bureaucrats and we're we're not going to go to our state legislature and talk about the problem. And we're not gonna drop on our knees and pray it away. We're going to Bill Pets. We're gonna do something about it. Just an army of us deciding no child in my town

sleeps on the floor tonight. That's right. I love it. Sos on the floor tonight. That's right. I love it. So that's your slogan motto. That was the slogan now. Mission statement, that's right. As you missed statement, then you had to name the thing. Yeah, well, that was the funny part.

I didn't want to call it. I mean, at first it was just a family Christmas project and that's not that I didn't work. No, no, that's the family Christmas project. That's, well, and you understand, I had no dream of being a non-proc. I can't understand it, but you still, you gotta think. You gotta think, and everything has to have a name.

You don't call it the thing. Yeah, exactly. We're gonna go do this. That might have been better than my first choice. Which was? Beds for Babes. Yeah, that doesn't work. Yeah, that's it.

Everybody that's not a good Google search. It misses a little. Yeah. Well, it hits some worlds, but let's slow. I mean, bed for babes. Nobody sleeps alone in my You can do that. Yeah, look, that's an adult for every other project. There's another story with that. Yeah, sure. So beds for babaves is like, yeah, they got shut down about the minute I left my mouth. You got it. But it was Christmas time and, you know, that's for Baves, I get the idea.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't work. And, you know, Silent Night is just one of my, all-time classics and one of my favorite songs and Sleeping Emily Peace, although I had Rob Schneider who I met in an airport not too long ago and he was pretty interested, he's helping us out a little bit and he said,

he pointed out for the first time and it's a couple of times since then, it sounds more like a funeral home, which it does. Ha ha ha ha ha. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. You know, the first year we did it, just a family Christmas project, that a friend from Boise. He's the one that went on the first delivery with me.

So it touched him just as much as it touched me. And if there's ever a co-founder, it would be Jordan Allen, he wanted to do it up in Boise. So, you know, he did- He saw their big mutton head a joint guy that was crying in the car. Yeah, the big- That's precious. Yeah, it is.

It was a tender moment. And I've known Jordan since, oh my gosh, five of them. Yeah, pretty close. Did you wipe one of those tears with your thumbs? Yeah, yeah, he did. That's a really beautiful thing. Geez.

I don't know. I see where this is going. You see what I'm going to get to. Yeah, I'm breaking you down, dog. So Jordan, you start one in Boise? Correct. We didn't know what to call it. At that time, wasn't a chapter. It was just Boise.

And then the next year, we got this strange phenomenon where people wanted to actually donate money to us, but they couldn't because we weren't a 501c3. Yeah, the picture of 501c3. And actually, I have a really good story. Which is a pain in the body, but it's absoluteness. Oh, it's that.

Yeah, you have to. And I remember sitting at lunch one time with Jordan, and we were getting ready for the next season of building in Christmas because we only built one time a year. And we were going over this stuff and blah, blah bubble on. I remember this lady was walking by us and we were in this booth at this restaurant and she stopped and she says, I'm sorry, I just eared up your whole conversation. I listened to everything. I hope that's okay and we're like, sure, she's like, I heard what you're doing. Here's all the money in my wallet. And I went, I mean, we kind of looked each other well. Wow.

Well, you don't know us from, I mean, we can be lion too. I mean, you know, it was just, it was a moment in the history of SHP where we realized this is a lot more than just how we feel. You know, there was other people that felt this way, which turned into obviously a lot more people coming in to do your part of it. Dude, you fit.

Hey, there's nobody. Listen, you can... There's so many things that we can talk about people in need and our culture that, yeah, I could help them. Well, I can help them. It's like, I'm a football coach. Well, I'm not helping a budding violinist

that can't play for violinists or a really talented ballet person because I don't, I can't do that. But so somebody might be drawn to my story and then others might be like it's a mud and football. Who cares, right? Nobody thinks a child should have to sleep on the floor. I mean, it's a universal thing.

And so I get it. I mean, people are pretty easy sell. Pretty easy sell. It's a whole lot easier to water chemical stuff. Maybe not as lucrative. Maybe not as lucrative, but well, it depends on for who. Yeah, that's just so. The people start saying,

hey, I want to do this in my town. So what happened was as we learn more about the need and we were only building in Christmas, you know, the 12th, 13th and 14th, but the 15th came around. And I think in the 14th, I did maybe one or two little Boy Scout Eagle service projects, you know, those, yeah, it was awesome.

It was all, you know, these kids had kind of wait to the last minute and they needed a project and this got approved. So we did them, right? Build a bed, you can, those, yeah, it was awesome. It was, you know, these kids had kind of wait to the last minute and they needed a project and this got approved. So we did them, right? Build a bed, you can get your eagle scouts. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. But in 2015 came around and we then decided

and we were starting to get a lot of even organizations that were like, hey, we'd like to donate, can we build beds with you? And we're like, hmm, maybe we can do this. And so we actually did 15 builds in 2015 or excuse me, 13 builds in 2015 because we did them through the year. That's when SHP took a big turn because now we were pumping out a lot more beds. It was taking a lot more of my time. I was starting to use more of my vacation time from work and all your time. Oh, my time. That's right. And buying a business with my step brother, from my stepdad, and doing all this, it is.

Oh, so at this time, it professionally, you are also becoming an owner of the company. Yeah, oh yeah, we were working at it. We're working. Yeah, doing that. And so. Because it was so fulfilling. It was financially was. Yeah, I know.

Yeah. And it was too. don't get me wrong. It was a great job. And I love the people I work. I'm not doing that, but the point is, you still got that thing hanging around. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And it was building more and more.

And it was far more satisfying as anybody can imagine, delivering beds to kids is the most fulfilling thing I've ever done. It's absolutely true. And so it just got more and more. 2017 came around and I went to a water treatment conference in San Diego. Well, a buddy of mine that I met probably 10 years previously, lived down there and he says, hey, come see me. And I said, sure, so we met at a projrez game and then I went back to his house and he

said, hey, I've been watching what you're doing. You know, my company needs a service project. He says, can we do this, a build down here? I said, why don't we just do a chapter down here? Because we then started calling them chapters. We had Boise and Twint. And he's like, yeah, we can do that. So we started, we organized this build.

And then my brother wanted to do a chapter in Gilbert. So we organized a build. And they were kind of within two or three weeks. So all of a sudden, we were posting this... And they had four chapters. Correct. Hey, we're starting chapters. We're from Idaho to San Diego. To Utah.

Or to Arizona, excuse me. To Arizona. And so that opened the floodgates of, oh, I can start a chapter with sleeping on the piece. So now we actually got people from Maryland, from Minnesota. We had no idea who they were. We had some other friends. Mother just recognized you on Facebook. Yeah.

Friends or friends or friends? What's really funny is the one in Minnesota, he said, he had built a bed for his daughter, loved it, and he wanted to build a bed for someone. So he went online to research, you know, give me some ideas. He's bound to your. And found our website. Wow. And it was, I mean, it wasn't much of a website.

So he called us and I spoke with him on the phone and in 2017, the end of 2017, we had nine chapters in five months. It just kind of blew up a little bit. And all of a sudden, I'll get to your answer in a little bit. All of a sudden, my Jordan Allen, my buddy says, hey, you need to take November 14th and 15th off or 15th and 16th off. And I said, why? And he says, I can't tell you. You just need to take him off. And I'm like, and he knew some of the trickiness between working this because it was kind of

button heads a little bit. And I said, you know what I'm asking? What you're asking me to do? And he's like, oh, yes. And I knew I had to go talk to my stepdad and my brother and say, Hey, these I gotta take two days off and I'm not real sure why. Yeah. And I said, I knew it was an SHP thing, right? And the whole time I've been talking with this marketing group from New York that wanted to fly out and do this magazine article on the SHP ads. That's right. Yeah, exactly.

And it was funny about the whole returning the favorite thing is, you know, something wasn't stirring the Kool-Aid, but I knew not to ask because I was told not to. So I just kind of went along dumb. But, you know, that's when I approached my business cohorts, my stepdad and said, hey, I need these two days off. And it was time.

It was time he recognized that my passion for SHP was far bigger than the company. And he said, you know, maybe you need to really think whether you want to be with this company. And so now the 14th and 15th micro shows up does this TV show. Does this TV show? And then it blows up. Then it blows up. Yeah, we had in the next year and a half We had over 5,000 chapters requested 5,000 people all over the country in eight different countries requested become a chapter and

Okay, well now you got to tell me how many chapters do you have so of that 5,000? We've we trained only 330 only yeah, I mean come on Let's see I'm proud of so there are three are they all in the US? We're in four different countries, but only so Canada United States Bermuda and Bahamas We got the vacation spots down I mean what started as I'm gonna get these kids off their ass and build a bunk bed 10 years ago is now 330 chapters in four countries of people building beds and proclaiming no child sleeps on the floor in my bed.

We're actually, it's a proud thing, but a sad thing at the same time. We're actually the largest bed building charity in the world, only because there really isn't. There's another one. Well, there's a few, but there's low church things type. So when did you leave the water thing and become a full-time bed builder?

So November 14th is when returning the favor was showing up to air and I had left November 1st. You're kidding me. How many beds have you made since bed number 24? I just looked today. I had a student call me from Texas Tech. I think it was doing a report and she says, can you give me a ballpark where your bed count is right now? I said, it's 138,861. Is that closing? 138,861. 138,861.

138,861 beds and counting. That's just crazy awesome. Well Well that concludes part one of our conversation with Luke Michelson and I hope you'll listen to part two this now available as I kind of come to terms with a new phrase, child bedlessness. I don't even think it's a real word but it's certainly is a real problem that hadn't been solved yet. But if you don't even think it's a real word, but it's certainly a real problem that hadn't been solved. Yet, but if you don't listen to part two, make sure you join the Army of Normal Folks at NormalFokes.os and sign up to become a member of our movement. Y'all, it only takes committing to doing one new thing this year to help others, and there will be a ton of awesome ideas on this

podcast from all the folks we feature. Some of them may resonate with you deeply and others may not at all and that's okay because we're all called to do different things with our different talents. By signing up you receive a weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen to miss an episode or you might prefer reading about our incredible guest. Together y'all, we can change this country, but it starts with you. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you in part two.