An Army of Normal Folks - Luke Mickelson: No Kid Sleeps On The Floor In Our Town! (Pt 2)

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.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney again with an Army of Nolmouth folks and we continue with part two of our conversation with Luke Michelson, founder of Sleep and Heavenly Peace, which has built more than 138,000 beds for kids who didn't have one. Let's hear more about it right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I had no idea how big the need was. And we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, Memphis, Tennessee. How many kids, you know, the metropolitan area, as well as the suburbs, North of Mississippi, and Eastern Arkansas is about a million, 700,000 people within the whole metropolitan area.

And this is a pretty high poverty area. How many children are sleeping on the floor tonight? Well, the sad truth about that is, you know, when later on as we realize the need was much bigger than what we thought, you know, we start building more beds. And I really did a lot of research trying to find any statistics. I mean, certainly, if there are statistics about, you know, a badlessness. Right. Which is not even a real word. No. Yeah. It's a real problem. you know, a badlessness. Right. Which is not even a real word. No. Yeah. It's a real problem.

You know, real problem without a real word. That's right. What does it look like? And there was no, there was no statistics. So the only, the best statistic we have is granted over 10 years now, but I've been able to take a population like Twin Falls, and it's called the Magic Valley surrounding communities, right? It's about 80,000 people.

We delivered X amount of beds, excuse me, had X amount of applications. It was, it was about 3%. And that's in a very fairly wealthy area of the United States. 3% and a place like 20,000. So I can imagine Memphis or other areas. Large Baltimore Memphis, St. Louis, Little Rock, would probably double. I bet it's more. Oh, I bet you I bet it's a lot more. And then the sad Rock, probably double. I bet it's more. Oh, I bet you. I bet you it's a lot more. And then the sad thing about it is, I bet it's more than 6%.

Still no statistics. Still, we're finally, one of the big milestones we did reach not, but two years ago is I finally got in contact with, you know, Kasa, I can't actually, actually, we know Kasa very well because we have done a podcast on Kasa and a young lady in Oxford who started the first chapter there and now plans to have a chapter in all counties in North Mississippi that 2024. Normal lady. What's that?

Normal lady. What's that? Normal lady. Very normal lady who grew up at Ole Miss, a sorority girl, girl and was destined to be that track and is now living in Oxford and there is not a single foster kid. Oxford, Mississippi is in Lafayette County and there's not a single child in foster care in the entire county that does not have a gots of representative of the song. Wow, which is phenomenal. That's amazing. That's amazing. You all hooked up because I guarantee you

some of those kids don't have best. Well, and they became a very big advocate. Well, not even just an advocate. What I learned two things was, when any time you're dealing with not so much foster care but transitioning homelessness for sure. There's two or three major difficult things for these people to get.

Of the top three, if it's not number one, it's usually number two, and that's beds for their kids. I didn't know that. And then when we deal with Kasa and other agencies that deal with foster care and transitioning homelessness, to ask a parent if the child even had a bed, it wasn't even on the paper. It is not.

They didn't ask. Yeah, they didn't ask, because they didn't, you just assumed, and it was just something that was missed. And we feel like we're making some headway, where these, and I think sometimes it wasn't even asked because there was no solution. You couldn't find a bed for a kid. Well, I've got also make sense,

and there may be no money. Yeah,. And it's not just a bed. You can buy a bed frame, but the box screen mattress, the comforter, the pillows, the sheets, you add all that stuff up. Those things are expensive. How much of twin mattress costs right now? 120 bucks. Or if you get really, really cheap, when you might get it for a hundred bucks, either a mattress or we eat this week. Yeah. You know, as the years went on, two things happened. We found that the need was much larger than we anticipated or that we even thought, right? Yeah, that's definitely more than three percent.

Oh, yeah. And as your number of three percent, I get you done, but there's no way that's not worse than that. Of course not. Yeah, you know, maybe in my little square and look at the woods, but in certainly in these high poverty areas. So let's just say, let's just say it's double that, six percent. Yeah. Yeah. Just just say that,

that's one in 19 children. Yeah, absolutely. In the United States. Yeah. And so as we started dischimpering that, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm sitting here thinking about what you're doing, and I'm just wondering, how do those kilts fit rested in the morning and soon as you go to school and study and not have trauma in their life sleeping on their school clothes or worse on a rolled up piece of carpet or whatever the hell is, they have to go to sleep.

It's worse than that and we tell everybody, look, it's more than just a bit. It's more than just a good night's sleep. It's more than, I mean, It's more than just a good night's sleep. It's more than, I mean, what do you hide your head as a child when you're scared? You know, it's under the cuff. It's funny. A friend of mine says, you know what's funny is my sister and I, when we got in trouble, we go to our secret hiding place, our SHP, they called it, and it was their bed. It was their bed. Yeah, I first got to find this. It is. And it's where you hide when you're scared.

And when you hear kids that they're embarrassed to have friends over their house because they don't have a bed. And you can't have a sleepover. You can't have a sleepover. Mike Rowe even pointed something out to me when he first came on returning the favor, he took him into a delivery. And he says, you know, I always wanted to ask you this. He says, you know, we call it a bedroom.

But if there's no bed in it, it's just a room. Just a room. We call it bedtime. Well, if there's no bed, it's just sleep time. And, you know, you want to read a bedtime story? No, it's just a story. And even though these are words, they really mean something, you know, and if you picture yourself,

certainly if you've got kids and picture your kids in a situation where they don't own anything, they don't get a good night's sleep. I mean, there's testimonials of parents that we're building right now and going to share of the differences that just in schooling and in mood of the child, there are confidence that they have just in the last six months to a year since they've had a bed is it's unbelievable. It really is. And so they have just in the last six months to a year since they've had a bed is, it's unbelievable. It really is.

And so they have something that's there. Yeah. And that's when we go and deliver bed, keep in mind, we do not deliver bed unless we can put it in a room and the child can sleep in it when we leave. If we can't do that, then we won't deliver. Because we know that sometimes it wouldn't happen if we didn't do that.

So we deliver these beds and we make sure that these kids know, this is your bed, it's not your parents, it's not your brother, it's your bed. We'll be right back. I've done a lot of work in the inner city and I've had, we could do this show for 12 hours and I couldn't even begin in that 12 hours to tell you all of the impactful things that have happened in my life as a result of the lessons I've learned and the amazing, And any time you go into places with with disenfranchisement and and abject poverty and loss, there's going to be challenges. They're inherent. Yeah. Um, have you ever, and I'm gone into a place to deliver a bed where the parent feels entitled to your family entropy?

Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, and that can be, or there's like a brand new car with a drive-out bag parked outside or delivered a free bed or they can't even get off their, it's to say thank you. I mean, I want our listeners to understand, tell me a couple of those stories. You bet. Because they happen.

Oh, absolutely. I assume they happen. Oh, of course they do. Of course they do. You know, two, well, a couple of things. Let me put this way. So there's been deliveries we showed up. And I remember I took my brother along this house,

and he's like, this house is bigger than mine. That TV is bigger than mine. And it's really easy to judge at first. But what you don't realize is, well, that house was probably either someone's paying their rent. That TV was probably given to him. So I always caution people to be very careful when you judge when it comes to that. But I also train my chapter presidents when you go into a home and you take your volunteers, you have to go in there with one mindset. And I know what that is. You're there for the kid. That's it. If you're there for the parent, you're going to go in some of these homes and you're not going to want to go back. And you're going to have your feelings

right? Yup, because they're going to sit on the couch. They won't even say, thank you. They expect you to be there. In fact, we have some applications where they say, hey, I've ordered my bed. Where is it? It's not coming. That's where it is. You know, when a chapter present has... It's it lows. Go get you a girl and make it. You know, when they've got 300 applications, which a lot of chapter presents do most of them have are in the hundreds and they have 50 beds. Right. I mean, it's not a first come for come. You have to make a decision and you need to make the most deserving decision. And we leave that up to the chapter presence. And that is probably one of the hardest things that you have to present. I remember sitting in my bed or just going through these applications.

No, no, it was a nice comfortable bed. And that's the hard part. Is you're sitting there and you're reading these stories while you're enjoying your three pillows and your five throw pillars that are on the floor right now I'm gonna kick him around and you know, you're just enjoying your own bed And I remember reading this one and I can't remember there was something busy going on that week I just couldn't get to this delivery for like two weeks and it was just non on me and finally I call this lady up and she didn't speak English very well But enough to say hey, I'm finally I got to come do this for me I got to get out of this rut right and I show up Bill and again walked into this home

little Spanish family and it was so cute she'd actually baked this cookies there was a lot of stuff on the couch and the kids took turns who slept on the couch she walked into the rooms and every single one of their clothing was folded to a square. I mean, they would have made military guys jealous, but stacked on the ground, there was no dresser, there was nothing in the room, right? And I just think she was doing well. Oh, she was the well as well as she could.

That's what I'm partly, yeah. She was doing it especially good with what she had. And this is the hard part is, I reflected on the last two weeks going, I had time. I could have went over there. And it's hard not to beat yourself up over that. Because you still have a life.

You still have kids, you have your own thing, you have to end it, and I tell my chapter presence, you still have a life. But at some point, you have to get out of the bed. You have to get off the couch. You have to be as a normal person. If you're relying on someone else to do it, it just ain't going to get done.

You know? And so it's very vital that when you focus your attention on what the need really is, which is a child that doesn't have a bed. I clearly care about it. If your mission statement isn't, make sure these parents have furniture in their house. Yeah. It's, I don't want to get sleep in them before. And I don't give a rat's but if the parents have a million bucks in the closet, if you don't want to give your child a bed, then I will.

Because I'm worried about the kid. That's right. And I'm not really worried about you. And frankly, whatever toxicity in your life that's led you to the point you are, I'm just trying to remove a little bit of that from the child. And that's the problems. These children are in these conditions not because of their choices. Quite frankly, completely out of their choice. Oh, of course not.

And in some of the parents' defenses, not really their choice either. I mean, I can't tell you how many moms got an apartment with a grocery bag of clothes that they grabbed as quick as they could when they left a very abusive situation, right? They just didn't have anything, right? And so they didn't have much choice either.

In fact, they had a very difficult and brave choice than a lot of people have. So to be able to provide a bed for them and that family, that's where it's a big win. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but the point I'm trying to make is for anybody who's motivated by this, it's not all peaches and crickets. No, of course, it's work. Oh, it's a lot of work. You're going to be angry at some of the things you see But at the end of the day you have to hang your hat on this I'm helping a child who can't help themselves regardless of who their parents are where they come from and that's what this is about. That's right not some unappreciative

parent who's obviously in the situation they're in because they're idiots anyway. Right. Oftentimes. Oftentimes. The ones I'm talking about that are being in it. It's not all of them, obviously. In fact, probably the vast majority of them were just people struggling.

Yeah. But there are tough times. Yeah. For sure. We'll be right back. One thing when you start, and I don't know how you feel about nonprofits, when I was starting or looking to become a nonprofit, I, I, they were a care forum, at least,

I like nonprofits that have true pass through. There's a lot of nonprofits where 40% of all the money that received goes to support the administration of the nonprofit, nearly, you know, 60 or 40% actually gets passed through to the intended Infalanthropy and I think that's crap for for his magazine in 2014 the average national average was 37% 37% gets passed through is management. Yep, the rest of the whole third so so you're saying 60 63% gets passed through and 37% is eaten up in the management of the philanthropy.

And they said of that. What is your pass? So, I'm coming from my religious background and the LDS church has tithes. Well, most churches have tithes of 10%. That's all we take. That a boy. So, and the beauty of it. That is phenomenal. Well, what bill here's the key. So you make sure that only 10% of the money that comes in your organization is to pay your salary and the administration, how 90% goes to making beds and mattresses and stuff for children. It's even higher than that. Because what happens is, let's say you're a chapter president here in Memphis and you get a thousand dollars donate. I don't have sympathy. So no, you, we take a hundred dollars of it and your chap, your, that money stays here. Now who pays for the software, who pays the insurance, who pays for all that, that 10%

does. So really, it's, and that's about four percent of a chapter. So it's really 96% of that dollar stays local in that chapter. And you, let's say you have a friend in California that's a chapter president, you can actually select that chapter and your donation. And this is not easy to track. So you can tell your donation where it goes. Exactly. Exactly.

And it's, and it's, I don't care what the donation there are very few grants that restrict that policy, but we don't ask for a dime more. It's 10% and if we don't have enough then on a administration front, then you know, either after let people go or we go without. That's why SHP. So in Twin Falls was was our headquarters and when I say headquarters, it was a warehouse. I get it. It was a warehouse Ten by ten, by little office. And we're moving out.

We've moved now out here to North Carolina because we want to service the East Coast chapters and just in freight alone, it's going to save us well over $100,000 a year. And so we value that dollars much as we can. We feel like I'd rather spend that 10% in how we can help our chapter presence be more successful with the marketing materials or other needs than all volunteers. Okay, just like you were when you started. Correct. Yep.

So how many chapters do you want to be in like 2025? So we are average and we would like to maintain this average because the study average is between 50 and 60 chapters a year and we'd like to put this average because the steady average is between 50 and 60 chapters a year and we'd like to put our goal is- There'll be at 500, about 2020. Oh, for sure, man. I'll be pretty close to that, yep. We're at 330 and you gotta understand,

some chapters have gone by the wayside, you know, so right now we have about 205 active- You're only using some of that volunteer and getting them around but still. Yeah, and we don't require much to be a chapter. If you build 10 beds a year, you're a chapter. Rechapter, yeah. No, yeah.

It's really a chapter. If you don't want one bed and get one kid off the ground, you should be a chapter. Absolutely. And we don't look at the quote, quote, success of a chapter by how many beds they build. Because what's 100 beds or 100 kids to 300 kids or 500 kids? They're still kids, right? Just because your chapter is a chapter

present, have more volunteers than and you're in a bigger city than little potent Twin Falls Idaho, we don't measure success that way, right? Luke, your story is phenomenal. I mean, Luke, you're stories phenomenal. I mean, under the guise of an army of normal folks, you grew up the kid to a divorce mom with five kids in a house, went on a mission, came back, worked your way up the ladder, ended up trying to own a business and inquit after figuring out a way to do something that mattered for children. It's a great story, and I know people are going to be after figuring out a way to do something that mattered for children.

It's a great story and I know people are gonna be, there's gonna be some people that hear this sort of motivated to do this. So if someone wants to be a chapter, let's have a chapter, how do I get in touch with you? SHBbeds.org. If you go to SHBbeds.org. Clareobeds.org. A, you can go there and volunteer, find your local chapter, If you go to SHPBeds.org. And pluralbeds.org.

A, you can go there and volunteer, find your local chapter. You can connect them directly. There's phones you can call and message you can leave for whatever chapter you want to either donate to or volunteer to. And if you have that inkling, you can find out where chapters are. For example, throw a plug out there. We don't have a chapter in Memphis. Can you imagine there are probably four chapters you could have very easily.

You can go to our website and click on start a chapter. And that process... And your website is... SHPbeds.org. SHPbeds.org. B-E-D-S.org. And our online process, trust me, most of our chapter presidents are retired or full-time working couples that have friends that just want to get together and do it whenever they can.

And they have zero experience. We take them from that to we take all of the management, all that business running part of a nonprofit, which is complicated, working with our friends at the IRS, we take that all the way from you. We just want chapter presence to focus on three things. Raising money, which is the easiest part of SHP, by the way, building beds and delivering beds. Those are the three things we ask them to post. And you don't really have to be a carpenter. No.

This is, this is kind of paint by numbers. Yeah. It's literally, it's like an assembly line. If. This is, this is, this is kind of paint by numbers. Yeah. It's, it's literally, it's like an assembly line. If you've never seen a builder, you want to look at a build, go to our website, go to our YouTube page. You can see, I mean, these aren't really overly sophisticated. Oh, no. They're sturdy and they're style.

Yep. Yep. But it's, it's not something that you feel like I'd love to do this, but I'm not really carpenter. Well, neither are most of these people. No, no, most of them aren't. And I mean, it's the same bed in Texas as it is in New York, as is in Bahamas or Canada.

It's the exact same bed, exact same design. We delivered just to ages three to 17 kids. And it's the exact same collection of children that need to be off the floor. Absolutely. Yeah, we gotta catch these that need to be off the floor. Absolutely. Yeah, we gotta catch these kids when they need us the most and that's those ages. So, Luke, every guest, including me, even Alex,

nobody really wants to talk to Alex, but even if they wanna talk to Alex, we really are trying to create, we're trying to create an interesting show that people want to listen to, okay? But we are also trying to open people's minds and eyes to the idea that government has proven woefully inadequate and fixing most of our society's simplest deals. And we really do want to create a movement. And part of that movement is just being a member

of this army of normal folks doing things, whether it's building beds or holding babies or helping returning citizens from jails or helping kids who've had abuse in their life, all kind of different in manner of philanthropic endeavors, but one of the things we all do is we wanna say, we're not above anybody. And so our listeners have my direct contact there.

Alex's and every guest has given their direct contact information. So certainly people go to your website, just like you suggested. But if someone wants to directly email you and ask you a specific question, how can they do that? So they can go to just type in executive.director at shbbeds.org. And that's Luke. And that goes to me. He up on the executive director. And if you have any problems with there, I mean, you can go to our website too and information at scbeds.org goes to me as well,

eventually anyways. And I'm happy to talk to anybody. You know, our, we run a podcast as well called Humans Helping Humans. And the point of that podcast is exactly what you said, Bill, is we want people to realize our chapter presidents are just normal people too. They've just had the courage to stand up and and actually do some.

Yeah, when they looked over the edge of the viaduct, they actually stopped. Yeah, that's right. That's the difference. Not only stopped is they climbed down. They climbed down and they and they they actually helped. That's that's the difference. Well, Luke, I hope, frankly, I hope you're in boxes full tomorrow. Could be, could be, let's hope.

It has been just an absolute joy visiting with you and your story is inspiring and I hope a bunch of people go to your website and click on it. And I'm gonna keep up with you because I 138,139,000 beds in 10 years. I mean, there's gonna be a million bed milestone at some point. Our major sponsors lose right now and our goal with their help and other sponsors don't get me wrong. Other sponsors, our goal is a million kids in 10 years.

So wow, yeah. That's phenomenal. Luke, it was an honor and a pleasure meeting you and thanks for joining me. Thanks Bill. And thank you for joining us this week. If Luke or another guest has inspired you to take action in your community, please let us know.

I genuinely want to hear about it. You can write me anytime at billatnormalfokes.us and I swear to you, I'll respond. And if you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, share it with friends and on social. Do all the things you can to help us grow and army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney and we'll see you next week.