August 2026 Highlight: Home Sweet Home Supports Vulnerable Families Transitioning to Stable Housing by Providing them Furniture, Empowering Choice, and More

“The option to choose is something our clients don’t often get,” Reznicek said. “I’ll never forget how one of our clients who seemed to be a little guarded explained how she was feeling to me. She said, ‘Where I come from, people aren’t just nice to you for no reason.’”

To serve as many families as possible, efficiency is key. On the way back to the warehouse after delivering donations to clients, moving trucks pick up new donations from homes across the region.

Volunteers then unpack items as they come in, meticulously separating everything into categories. Furniture that might need a little polish goes in one direction. Plates, pots, pans, silverware goes in another for sorting, cleaning and matching. Lamps, electronics, or anything that needs a battery or electricity to work goes to that volunteer station to be tested. Other volunteers scrutinize linens for stains or other imperfections that might make them not worthy to line the shelves in the showroom.

“We would not be able to do what we do without our volunteers,” Reznicek said.

Jean Kendall has been volunteering for 1 ½ years after learning about Home Sweet Home at her church. She accompanies clients as they shop.

“It’s really heartwarming to see people come in and how moved and touched they are by this organization,” she said. “I helped one woman who couldn’t speak English, but she the tears kept coming and you could just tell how much gratitude she had.

“Everybody who comes through here is respected and served from a place of love and dignity.”

Kendall also noted that much of the donations from the community that come in below Home Sweet Home’s standards is also put to good use. Oftentimes, families opt to leave the table leaves behind because the homes they are moving into are smaller. The organization partners with the St. Louis Woodworkers Guild, which turns those table leaves into small end tables available for clients, too.

Extra fabric go to the Thimble & Thread Quilters Guild to be turned into quilts that then go on the bedding shelves inside the showroom. And any glasses associated with alcohol are donated to the Grapevine Wines & Spirits, which sells the glassware and donates a portion of the proceeds back to Home Sweet Home. Unusable metal gets recycled. Quality linens with minor imperfections are given to the Humane Society, said Scott McIntosh, Development Director.

Home Sweet Home has kept 1.2 million pounds of furniture and household items out of landfills by redistributing them to families.

“The goal is to keep as much out of a landfill as possible,” McIntosh said.

The organization’s goals are expanding, too. There are more than 100 nonprofits on the waiting list to join Home Sweet Home’s partner organizations. Families referred to Home Sweet Home have to wait at least two weeks for a shopping appointment.

In the next two to three years, Home Sweet Home leaders are hoping to move to a 60,000 square-foot-facility. That could help expand services to families and open client referrals to three more nonprofits, said Reznicek, who is no longer watching helplessly as the need for furniture keeps families apart.