Sleep Country Canada donates Olympic mattress sets to help homeless people
After providing 6,600 beds to the 2010 Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Sleep Country Canada found themselves with a unique challenge: what to do with thousands of slightly used mattress, boxsprings and metal frames.
Service Canada’s Homelessness Partnership Secretariat proposed a partnership with Sleep Country Canada to distribute the used beds to not-for profit organizations across the country. Working with municipal governments, Service Canada and Sleep Country Canada prepared to distribute 1,320 mattress sets to homeless shelters and transitional/supportive housing facilities.
Volunteers unload mattress sets at West Hill Community Services in Scarborough.
The City of Toronto’s Shelter, Support and Housing Administration Division identified a number of not-for-profit organizations that could use the beds. In the end, Toronto received 220 mattress sets: 110 were delivered to The Furniture Bank and another 110 went to West Hill Community Services in Scarborough.
Both West Hill and The Furniture Bank gave 45 mattress sets to their clients while the remaining 65 mattress sets were each distributed to not-for-profit organizations in the GTA.
Sleep Country Canada not only donated the mattress sets but paid for the transportation and delivery of the beds to drop-off centres in seven Canadian cities, including Toronto.
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