Christmas will come a few days early for a local family, after a Windsor non-profit celebrated a milestone.
The Windsor chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP), an international charity that builds children's beds from scratch and provides them to less fortunate families, delivered its 1,000th bed to a family on Monday.
Before the delivery was made, a crowd of volunteers and sponsors gathered at the group's workshop on Kildare Avenue for a party to celebrate the milestone and recognize the partnerships that have been created with area businesses, as well as local unions, Windsor police officers and firefighters.
Brian Cyncora and his wife, Terry, began Ontario's only SHP chapter in Windsor in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Regular production of the beds, though, has only been taking place for three years. During that time, 1,128 beds have been built.
Each bed is provided with new sheets, a mattress, a pillow, and a comforter, at a cost of about $450. Once the beds are delivered to the home, the volunteers assemble them and arrange the bedding.
As a retired police officer, Cyncora has seen firsthand the number of young people who don't have a warm, dry bed of their own to sleep in each night.
"Research shows that three per cent of children in every community are bedless, sleeping in less-than-ideal conditions," said Cyncora.
The most recent census figures show about 95,000 children in Windsor-Essex. With Cyncora's mention of three per cent being bedless, the local need comes to roughly 2,800.
SHP Windsor also celebrated its partnership with the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board (WECDSB), which has a bed-building program in its high school construction classes.
Retired WECDSB principal Pat Hickson said without the board's input, the need would have been much greater.
"To put it in context, remember when you guys were in high school, and you had an assembly," said Hickson. "You go into the gym. Imagine the bleachers being packed, imagine all the chairs on the floor, the whole gym being packed, and they asked those kids to stand up. There's your visual of the number of kids right now who are off the floor and sleeping on beds."
SHP Windsor is always looking for volunteers and partnerships with companies for Build Days and Delivery Days. For complete information, visit their official website.
