KC Cares: Setting Up Shop

A Flourish volunteer sorts through dishes to make a set for someone to take home. // Photo by Beth Lipoff

Imagine finally getting a living space of your own but having nothing to put in it—including a bed. That’s where Flourish—a local non-profit furniture bank—can make a difference.

It works like this: Clients of social service agencies in the Kansas City area can come to Flourish and shop by appointment for free furnishings. The amount of stuff they get is proportional to the number of people in their household.

They get everything—beds, chairs, couches, lamps, dishes, cookware, sheets, towels, pillows. Just about anything you might need to furnish a home.

A volunteer at Flourish pins together material from two bedskirts to sew into a new duvet cover. // Photo by Beth Lipoff

“What we found through the years is that if someone is living in space without anything—without any furniture, without any basic essentials—they need a lot more than what we can provide them,” Flourish Executive Director Amy Cox says. “So we partner with agencies, not only to make sure the individuals coming to us have actual needs for the things we’re providing, but also so they’re getting the other wraparound services they need so that they can maintain housing, and they can keep the items we give them.”

Cox estimates that they give about $1,300 worth of stuff by thrift shop prices to each family.

Families get to choose their own things, just like in a regular store, and the shopping trip usually takes about 45 minutes. A volunteer trained in trauma-informed care guides them through the various parts of the warehouse to pick things from each category, including decorative items.

Amy Cox, executive director of Flourish, shows how they package their dish sets with photos on the boxes so it’s easy for people to see what they’re getting. // Photo by Beth Lipoff

“Sometimes we serve individuals who have previously been incarcerated or individuals who have been in a domestic violence situation for years, and in both cases, sometimes that individual has not even been able to choose their own clothes for several years. So to ask someone to choose an entire home is a lot to ask,” Cox says.

Although the non-profit originally started through a project at Resurrection, a United Methodist Church, Flourish became an independent charity in 2019.

The pieces come from a variety of sources. Often a hotel or business that is remodeling will donate pieces that don’t fit its new design. Other items come from individual donors.

The Flourish warehouse in Grandview has all kinds of furniture, including many chairs and couches. // Photo by Beth Lipoff

“We’re sort of like a matchmaking service. On one hand, we have corporate partners, non-profit partners, and individuals from our community who have items they can no longer use or no longer want to use—but these things are still really valuable. And then we have people in the community living without any of them,” Cox says.

One group of volunteers works to refurbish furniture, so donated pieces don’t have to be perfect. A sewing-focused group fixes up fabric items and nothing that comes to Flourish gets wasted. Cox says she’s proud that their work keeps good merchandise out of landfills.

Recipients are responsible for transporting the items to their homes from the 29,000-square-foot Flourish warehouse in Grandview. Last year, Flourish served 1,069 families, and Cox estimates they’ll serve about 1,300 in 2024.

“Furniture isn’t just about luxury or extras. It’s about really creating a foundation where people can feel their own worth and their own dignity. Then, that can be part of the impetus to help them go on and accomplish their goals in the community,” Cox says.

Millie Puckett came to Flourish through Catholic Charities after leaving a situation involving domestic violence last year.

“I‘ve never experienced anything like that. They were very helpful, they had lots of different things. They had furniture that was practically new,” she says.

A Flourish volunteer works to refurbish a piece of furniture. // Photo by Beth Lipoff

She appreciated the amount of help she received navigating all the various choices, especially because she was using a wheelchair at the time. The other thing that impressed her happened after she’d accidentally left her chosen dish set behind when packing up her things.

Puckett noticed they were missing on a Sunday and called to let Flourish know. Cox got back to her immediately.

“She sent me some text pictures of the dishes that I had chosen when I was there. I said, ‘Those are the ones.’ She brought them to me on that Sunday. I didn’t expect that. I thought I was going to have to go back up there or I was going to have to wait until the start of the new week,” Puckett says.

For Cox, Flourish isn’t just about furniture. It’s about community outreach.

“There’s a lot of ways you can provide people with things, but to recognize that how we treat the people that come here is just as important as the items we give them is a big accomplishment for us. I think it’s really evident to people when they come here that we do care about them as people, not just as another number to say, ‘Okay, we served another family this week, we can mark that up on our tally board,’” Cox says.

Flourish has many volunteer opportunities for all ages, from drivers to the refurbishing teams to folks who sort through the dishes to make sets. For more information, visit flourishfurniturebank.org/volunteer