Four Hands Sponsors LifeWorks for 5th Year

September 14, 2011  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Community/Charitable Support on September 15, 2011

Lifestyle home furnishings vendor Four Hands will again donate furniture to support a home makeover through LifeWorks.

LifeWorks is a local non-profit providing a comprehensive safety net of support to more than 10,000 individuals in the Greater Austin and Central Texas communities.
 
Each year volunteer teams compete to furnish and decorate apartments for youth living in the LifeWorks Supportive Housing Program. The program allows at-risk kids to have a place to live, with subsidized rent from LifeWorks, which provides guidance and counseling while the kids attend school and work.
 
"Five years ago, we put a team together and re-made an apartment for a young woman who had been in foster care and had recently become a mother. She was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, had a crib for her daughter and a couch that had been 'recycled' many times over," said Matthew Briggs, CEO and president of Four Hands, Austin. "Seeing her face when she walked in and saw her beautiful new home made us want to help more kids realize they are worthy of beauty, and we can help by putting Four Hands in each of their apartments."
 
Since 2007, Four Hands has donated gift cards and deeply discounted furniture to each team making over a LifeWorks apartment. Every night in Austin, about 500 youth are homeless. LifeWorks runs a continuum of housing (street outreach, emergency shelter, transitional housing, and supportive housing) to help them. The LifeWorks Home Improvement Challenge is a chance for teams to get to really know some of these kids. That challenges their preconceptions about teen moms and homeless youth while showing the LifeWorks clients there are adults who want them to succeed.
 
"What Four Hands does for these formerly homeless youth gives me chills because it's such a perfect fit," said Susan McDowell, executive director of LifeWorks. "Four Hands' involvement speaks to their mission of creating homes for people. These are clients that before have not had a place to call home and with Four Hands' Home help, they now do."
 
The LifeWorks Home Improvement Challenge is a friendly competition among community teams to create the best looking apartment with limited resources. Wade Oppliger, Vice President of Upholstery at Four Hands, will serve as judge for the 2011 event, which is Sept. 30 at an apartment complex in South Austin, not far from Four Hands headquarters.