He Found a Six-Year-Old Who'd Never Slept in a Bed | Episode 466

He Found a Six-Year-Old Who'd Never Slept in a Bed | Episode 466

A kid sleeping on the floor isn’t a sad metaphor, it’s a real crisis hiding in ordinary neighborhoods. I sit down with Luke Mickelson, the founder of Sleep In Heavenly Peace, to talk about the moment he learned children in his own small Idaho town had no beds and why that realization changed the direction of his life. What started as a simple garage build turned into a growing network of local chapters focused on one practical mission: build and deliver beds so kids don’t have to sleep on the floor.

Luke shares the story that made the issue impossible to ignore, including delivering a bed to a six-year-old who had never slept in one. We unpack what child bedlessness does to a child’s body, emotions, and school life, and why a bed is more than sleep. It’s a safe space, a source of dignity, and a reminder that someone in the community cares. Along the way, we dig into how service can lift our own mental health by shifting focus outward, and how purpose often starts with one small decision to act.

We also get concrete about solutions. Luke explains how Sleep In Heavenly Peace chapters work, how donations stay local, how volunteers can join build days and deliveries, and what to do if you know a child who needs a bed. If you’ve ever felt the pull to help but didn’t know where to start, this conversation turns that “tiny moment” into a next step. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people hear it. What’s one small action you’ll take after listening?

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Chapter Markers

• 0:02 - Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:40 - How Service Became A Habit
• 6:11 - Discovering Kids Sleeping On Floors
• 11:35 - Haley’s Story And The First Bed
• 20:52 - Turning A Garage Project Into Chapters
• 27:00 - The Scale Of Child Bedlessness
• 34:43 - Tiny Moments And The Desire To Act
• 41:26 - How To Donate Or Start A Chapter
• 44:36 - Closing Thanks And Final Challenge

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Transcript

Speaker 0:02

Hey everyone, it's Justin here with Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us on another episode of our show. Whether you're watching, listening, you're here in the United States or across over a hundred countries worldwide, over a thousand cities worldwide. It's really humbling, but it is work that we love to do. And I know our guest uh today is gonna echo that with the work that he has done and continues uh to do. Uh, and we have big goals, he has big goals, and and so I I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to have this conversation. So we're just gonna hop right in and uh not waste any more time on intros because I can I can go for a minute or two, so let's hop in. So our guest today is Luke Mickelson from Sleep in Heavenly Peace. Uh this organization is nothing short of just fantastic when we talk about and think about service to others, uh helping the human, not helping the Republican, helping the Democrat, just helping the human being. Um it's just uh it's just incredible. And uh we're gonna uh just say thank you to Luke for joining us on the show today.

Speaker 1 1:35

Oh Justin, thanks for having me on. This is great.

How Service Became A Habit

Speaker 1:38

Absolutely. So let's get it started. So what what got you um uh thinking about service to to others and it maybe before have uh uh the the uh the work that you're doing now, or maybe it it sparked the work that you you're doing now?

Speaker 1 1:59

No, it's a great question, you know. Um I think it's easy, easy to answer for me. You know, I grew up in a small town, and the benefits of growing up in a small town is you know everybody and and they know you, and that maybe is also not the benefits, but but getting to know everybody and being so close connected, you know, you feel responsible for each other, you feel like you need to support them mostly because you know exactly who they are, they know who you are, and and you know, so when someone's pulled off on the side of the road, you know, you got to stop and help, you know. So, and and I was also a farm kid from Idaho, right? Uh pretty humble means. My my uh my mom raised us, so I was raised in a single parent home with you know, there's five of us. And so we learned how to live with that, we learned how to make make the do with what we what we had. Uh, but we also had a great community that helped and jumped in. And you know, for for example, when my parents um split up uh you know that that next Christmas and pretty much every Christmas after that, we knew we weren't gonna get much um because it was my mom and single income. And you know, but I remember walking out that first Christmas season uh to and opened up the mailbox to grab the mail, and there was fifteen hundred dollars cash in an envelope, you know. We we knew that that came from the community, and that's just what you did, right? And and I always remember thinking, you know, I I was really grateful for that, but I wanted to be that guy too, you know, someone could, so they did. I want to be when I can, I will type guy. And so, you know, I think service just um was something that was always in the back of my mind because I appreciated what was given to me and the lessons I learned back then. And I've always felt that true service and and I should say true joy comes from serving other people. You know, you you when you have a chance to stop thinking about yourself and thinking about your own problems and and maybe focus some of your effort on someone else and helping them through some of their challenges, you know, your problems don't go away, Justin. They just don't feel as heavy, you know. And and when they when they when they get shrunk down like that, I think they're easier to deal with, you know, and sometimes you just find different ways around it that you might not otherwise have seen because your problems just seem so huge. It's like a monster in the closet that you've never seen. It's just as big and bad and as ugly as you want it to make it. Um, and until you actually see it, you know, you might realize there is no monster, it's a very small one, right? You know, so I think service um did that for me, and I've just carried that through my life. I when I served a mission for my church, um, I looked at it as a way to serve, not to convert, right? Just it to serve people. And and my mission president actually taught me that. And then he taught me later on, he says, you know, whatever profession you go into in your life, always look at it as a way to serve others, no matter what you do. And I love that, and it's really helped me, especially during those tar hard times, you know, when work is a little rough and I was an outside salesman, if that doesn't shock everybody. Uh, you know, so when I when there's problems with a client or a customer, you know, I I I didn't get down about it. I actually looked at it as a great opportunity to build relationships with them uh because I wanted to be that Superman for him, I wanted to solve it for him, I wanted to serve them. And so I think it just inherently came a part of my upbringing and and has stuck with me for you know my whole life.

Discovering Kids Sleeping On Floors

Speaker 5:29

Yeah, and that's it that's awesome. And that's kind of how I I feel, you know, you get asked questions all all the time, you know how how do you get started, how what made you stop and do something or incorporate a trip. And it's like, well, if I if I already had a trip in in mind and I have a couple days, and there's an opportunity to help others, uh, then it was lucky to go to Ukraine and and and help some people uh just a couple of years ago, and um people asked me like, why would you go in like a war zone with missiles flying? And and and it was just one of those things where obviously I I wanted to do something different that not everybody had had done, but then I also just wanted to be with people who on a minute-by-minute basis don't know if they're gonna be in the bomb shoulder, they're they're they're doing their classes um in bomb shoulders. And um anyway, so I I was asked after that, like, why would you even think about doing that? I even hesitated to tell family because of how how risky it it it was to uh to do that just as an example. And and so I think even I share the uh uh trait that when something comes up, like you mentioned, you you you just step in and when you're able to do it, you just you just do it. And I think sometimes it's easy for people to understand, and sometimes it's like, but why would you do what what you're doing? And and so with uh you know sleep in in heavenly peace, how did that come about? Was that uh did that come from your outside sales experience, uh like a vendor that you worked with, or was that just kind of you know from the ground up?

Haley’s Story And The First Bed

Turning A Garage Project Into Chapters

Speaker 1 7:40

Well, it you know, it's it's um you know, it's a story that gets created, um, like I think a lot of a lot of movements in the in our country, in our world. Um, you know, it started in a garage. You know, um I didn't know child bedlessness was even a real thing. It's not it's not even a real word, Justin. You believe that? I type it all the time and I get that red line underneath that just bugs me. But but I like using it because um it's the i irony that even bedlessness doesn't know it's real, but it is real, and it's real all over. Well, in 2012, when all this started, I didn't know anything about it. And I no one did, right? Um, I was just serving in my church uh position, which was what was called a young men's president, which is basically over the young young men's program. Um I was responsible for the religious uh teaching, but also the weekly activities, uh, which was basically Boy Scouts, you know. So we did a lot of scouting stuff and which involves service all the time. You know, we had some, we were doing service all over the place. Well, in these meetings, as part of the the young men's present responsibilities go, um, I'd sit in these meetings with other leaders and we talk about activities that we're doing, things that were going on in the community, and of course, the people that we were helping. Well, there was one family that a leader brought up and talked about the things that the family needed. First of all, they lived in a part of my small town, really small town, that I didn't even know existed. And I'd been riding my bike around this town since I was five. So, I mean, I was pretty shocked that I didn't know where this place was at. But then she started naming off the things that the the family needed, right? They needed to rise to school and and to work, and the kids didn't have any beds, and they were low on food and they needed help with rent. And and I remember, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Did you just say the kids didn't have any beds? Like, like, what do you mean? They got mattresses, right? She says, No, they're just sleeping on the hardwood floor. And you know, that just hit me so hard, so wrong. Like, I thought about my own kids and what would it be like for them to sleep on the floor. I'd slept on the floor one night, not intentionally, uh, I should say intentionally, not because I wanted to, and and uh it was not a fun night, you know. And then I thought about my Boy Scouts and all those leaders out there listening right now that that lead teenage kids, you know, for the past decade, it's been kind of hard to find an activity that's fun and something they want to do that doesn't involve a screen or a phone or a video game. And I thought, oh, here's a great opportunity that I could get an Xbox controller out of these boys' hands. I'll put a drill in it and we'll teach them how to build a bed. I've never done one, but we'll figure it out. I'm a farm kid, I can learn how to do this. And and so that's what we did. You know, I went home that night and measured my daughter's bunk bed and pick came up with a plan on how to build this bed with these teenage kids. And uh, so the next couple of nights they came over and we built this bunk bed for this family, and it was great, it was a great experience. Um, but the word kind of got out in the community and certainly within the boys' families, what we were doing, and all of a sudden, when it came time to deliver the bed, everybody wanted to be involved. I mean, we had like 30 people show up at my house, and I remember thinking, hey, we can't we can't take y'all over to this two-bedroom apartment, you know. So me and a bunch of people stayed back. Well, I wanted the boys to go and experience that, and so they did. Well, the next day at church, they told me how amazing it was, right? All the the the joy that they saw on the kids' face, of course, in the family, and I was excited that the boys got to experience that. I was a little, you know, uh uh jealous, to be honest with you, that that I missed out on that, but but I was excited for them. Well, you know, the next week comes around, and this was just after Thanksgiving. You know, my kids and I are watching a program, and and I'm going through a little something in my own eternal life, internal life of uh of a faith crisis, of an identity crisis. You know, I was 35. It's kind of about that age where everybody's just really starts questioning what they believe and questioning what's important to them. You know, I would been in my career, a successful career for many, many years and um, you know, was coaching, had a great family, had had um had my church service. I was, you know, on paper, it was great, but I was just struggling internally of what what matters most? You know, what where do I matter? Well, I just did this one awesome, amazing experience. It filled my bucket, and then the next week it was done, right? Back back to the norm. But it's funny how life just creeps itself back in, right? And well, I'm sitting on the couch with my with my kids and we're watching Big Bang Theory back in the day, and all of a sudden a commercial comes on, and it's I don't know, some Xbox game, or I don't remember what it was, but I remember my kids wanting to have this toy, and they knew I wasn't gonna buy it for them. We already had an Xbox. So I remember thinking, you know, here I'm going through this big eternal struggle, right? And and trying to trying to pet talk myself out of this hole I was falling into, and no one knew about it. And then now my kids wanted this Xbox game or whatever that they knew I wasn't gonna buy them, and they got a bed, and I just delivered a bed to a child that didn't have one. Why didn't they appre- I mean all these dad moment things come popping in my head? Well, the next thing I knew, I stood up and walked out to the to the garage door, and my kids are like, Dad, where are you going? You know, we're watching, we're watching our program. I said, You know, I got a leftover wood. I'm gonna build another bunk bed and you're gonna come and help me. Right? I wanted them to feel the joy of service, I wanted them to know what it felt like to stop thinking about themselves, as well as appreciate the things they had. You know, they're kids, of course they're gonna ask for presents and all that, but I didn't want to miss out on a dad moment, you know, I didn't want to miss out on an opportunity to teach them something, just like the Boy Scouts. And so we built another bed. Uh you know, and it was awesome. But the trouble is I didn't know what to do with it. You know, I didn't know child bedlessness was a real thing. And so I put it on Facebook, someone recommended I do that. On one of those buy-sell trade groups said, you know, hey, uh me and my family for a Christmas project to build this bed, and we want to give it to a family that's got kids sleeping on the floor. We don't, I just couldn't, I couldn't handle thinking about a child, you know, during Christmas time in Idaho, which is not a warm place, by the way, um, you know, to sleep on the floor. And so um, so I did that. And a couple of things happened that was really shocking to me. The first thing was the how many people commented on that post. People I never knew, I had no idea who they were, and people that, you know, friends I hadn't talked to for 20 years. And the second shocking thing was is they all knew about kids. They all knew someone that had kids sleeping on the floor, families that they knew, and the conditions that they were sleeping in, you know, hardwood floors, concrete floors, pallets, you know, kids, three or four kids to single bed. I mean, it was just really shocking to me that this was going on in my own small community in Idaho. So I was pretty excited, and I wanted this bed I built with these kids, with my kids, to go to a special child, a special situation, one that really needed it. Well, I found one. And it was a friend of mine that called me up and said, Hey, uh, Luke, have you delivered that bed yet? I said, No, no, I haven't. Why? What's up? She says, Well, let me tell you about Haley. So Haley was a six-year-old girl that had never slept on a bed before. She'd only slept in the backseat of her mom's car. They were homeless, right? And um, sure enough, my my friend was helping them get a house and get out of homelessness. And and so they they finally had a house. And I thought, this is perfect. So I loaded up the bed, and me and my buddy went out to deliver this bed to this to this family. Well, we walked into the house, and I don't know, I've been a part of you know, this kind of situation before where it's you know, there's some poverty here, there's some transitioning homelessness. But I'd never walked into a situation like this through looking at through the eyes of a six-year-old. You know, what was it like? There's no couch or TV to watch cartoons, there's no table to eat cereal at in the morning. You know, it just there was nothing in the house. There's a hot plate sitting on a on a milk crate that had a can of soup on it, and that was it. And I just thinking, I remember thinking, man, that this is hard to see, knowing that this is what a six-year-old girl goes through every day. But Haley, you couldn't tell. She was so happy she had a house. She was happy to show these two strangers, you know, her whole house. She didn't know why we were there. But I remember leaning down and said, Hey, why don't you show me your bedroom, Haley? So she walked us back to her bedroom. And you know, Justin, you can imagine what this looked like. You know, there's holes in the carpet and tears in the wallpaper and no closet door. There's used Barbie dolls and toys that in there, you know, you could just kind of get a sense. This wasn't the nicest place in the world. But of all those things that were hard to look at, the hardest thing, and the one that got me the most, is when I looked in the corner of the room and there was a pile of clothes sitting there. And that's where Haley slept. You know, she'd come home from school, she'd put on her PJs, um, you know, sleep on her school clothes, you know, a shirt for a pillow and pants for a blanket, and then put those same shirt and pants on the next morning and go to school. You know, that was so shocking to me. I'd never seen that before. You know, I wasn't prepared for it, you know, and and and almost got upset about it, you know, like I was mad. This is going on in my own hometown. You know, heck no. Um, but then I got pretty excited because we had brought a bed for little Haley, and we started bringing in these pieces of bed uh the bed and putting it together. And and I remember watching Haley, and when she realized what it was that we were bringing in, she just erupted like 10 Christmases, you know. She came up and hugged these two strange dudes, you know, that she had no idea who we were, and making all this racket. And and then she did something I'd never seen before. She went and hugged and kissed the bed. To see a child kiss a bit, to love something like that so much of something that you and I just take for granted every day. It just was so overwhelming to me. And if that wasn't enough to melt your heart, I look up and here's mom. You know, six years of tears streaming down the single parents' face. And I was raised by a single mom too. So I know what those tears meant. I knew the the guilt and the the frustration and the struggle, you know, and the worry that this mom has felt for six years now trying to provide for kids, all coming out of her at once. The weight in that room was so heavy, you know. You you I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. But I but one one thing came to my mind that I I didn't realize or prep or plan for, and I don't know how you could. Uh I just remember thinking, you know, this is way more than just a bed. This is more than just a good night's sleep. And I tell, I tell everybody I tell this story to, listen, if you would just pause your life for just a moment, give me, give me 60 seconds right now to help you realize and think about what it would be like to be six years old and not have a bed. You know, if you think about it just physically, right? You're waking up, you're not in a good, you're not feeling good, you're sore probably, you know, you're not in a good mood. There's a reason why they call it waking up on the wrong side of bed. These kids are waking up on who knows what side of what, you know. So they get up and they go to school, they're not ready to learn, not like the other kids. You know, they're they're in a bad, bad mood. They probably don't make very good friends because you know, they're they're struggling, they're tired, and that's the physical side of things. Then you think about the emotional and the and the mental side of things. You know, these kids can't have sleepovers, right? There's the the they don't want kids and their friends to come in and see the conditions they're sleeping in. And then they go to their friend's house, you know, little Johnny's not only has a bed, but he's got throw pillows, right? You know, and you you gotta wonder what what kind of mental um thought process that these these kids have seeing that, you know, and and worse yet, you know, Justin, when you and I have a bad day, you know, maybe bad day at work or get in a fight with someone, or or worse yet, you know, we we're sick, we got the flu. I mean, tell me what one place do we all wish and can't wait to crawl into? It's our bet. You know, these kids don't have that. And and and and this is all running through my head in, you know, in just seconds, right? As I'm witnessing this, sitting in this room with Haley and her mom. And I remember I just I couldn't say anything, I didn't know what to say. You know, in fact, me and my buddy on the way home, we had about a 30-minute drive home, really didn't say much to each other, right? Uh, I but I do remember thinking, look, I'm a farm kid from Idaho, Justin. I'm uh I love hunting and fishing and outdoors and college football on Saturdays and all this stuff. I loved it my whole life. And in a split second, none of it mattered anymore. You know, it just was like I spent a couple of hours for the last couple nights with my kids building a bed to solve that problem. Oh, that was well worth my time. And by the time we got home, I remember I looked over to my buddy and I said, you know, Jordan, no kid's gonna sleep on the floor in my town if I have anything to do with that. I mean, I was like that upset about it. Now I didn't know how bad child bedlessness really was. You know, I had this post that had a link or had had rather uh comments about all these kids that that um people had mentioned that they knew of, and that was my goal. I just wanted to clean that list out. So we started building beds. We built 21 beds before Santa showed up and delivered them all, and it was such a great experience. But one thing that happened was the more we built and the more we shared, the more kids got presented to us. The more people came out and told us, Well, I know a child. And another cool thing that I didn't plan on, there were more people that wanted to help. All of a sudden. My garage was would fill that night with strangers, people I had no idea who they were. They just wanted to help kids in their own community. And I learned that there are millions of people out there that want to give back, they want to help, they want to make a difference in not just their life, but in other people's lives. They just don't know how. And so I knew right then and there, especially when I realized how bad and ugly child bedlessness was becoming, or, or rather, that was, um, I knew that I wasn't going to solve child bedlessness in my community or or even other people's communities. It wasn't going to be solved by some farm kid from Idaho, right? It was going to be solved by people in their local communities stepping up and deciding, you know what, I'm going to make a change. I'm going to do something about this thing called child bedlessness in my own town. And so we built a platform. That's what we wanted to do. I built a platform so people could follow what we were doing and be successful at it. And because of that, now we've we've trained over 440 chapters in almost every state. We're in four countries, you know, and and here this summer we're going to be celebrating our 400,000th bed built. How fun is that? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 23:15

Oh my gosh. That's so it's so incredible. And and I we do. We we take for granted, and I know I have uh things like like like the bed, like as you're we're speaking about, you know, and we're not feeling well, and you know, we want to we just want to go lay down in our bed. And to think that there's this many people in more that don't even don't even have them as a as an opportunity. And you you talk about a a Christmas gift and and games and screens and a bed is something so much bigger than that because it it it lasts for years and years and years.

The Scale Of Child Bedlessness

Speaker 1 24:10

Well, it's you know, it's again, it's more than just a bed, right? You know, these these kids, uh, when when we deliver a bed to a child, right, there's two things I I walk away wanting these kids to know. Number one, I say, hey, little Johnny. First of all, Johnny's hiding behind mom, right? We show up and we're starting to put this bed together, these strangers, and you know, it's it's it's fun to watch these kids, their apprehension, right? They're hiding behind mom, they don't know these people, they're making all sorts of racket in their room. And just like Haley, once they see that it's a bed, these kids crawl out from behind their parents and they're so excited, they start helping you build it. They start bringing in slats and grabbing drills. And then when it's finished, they're crawling in bed at three o'clock in the afternoon to go to sleep because they've never had one, you know. And so I lean down to tell these kids before we leave listen, this is your bed. This is nobody else's bed. It's not your parents, it's not your brothers or sisters. This is your bed, right? And these kids, or rather, these people that are in your room that brought this bed to you, guess what? They built it for you because they love you and they want you to have and feel the joys of having a good night's sleep. And I think that really means something to these kids. You know, they don't have a lot of things, they don't have a lot of possessions, right? And this is something very valuable to them. Uh, as well as, you know, they I want them to know that there's people in their community that love them, right? And and and I want that to resonate with them. And and so later on in life, you know, when they can, I hope they will. You know, and that and that's that's the value of what it means to be a human helping another human, you know. There's no agenda behind it, there's no uh, you know, cause other than we're here to help a child. Um, you know, and let's be real, Justin. These kids, they're in these situations not because of their choices, right? These are the choices of someone else, and sometimes it's nobody's fault. It's a it's a house fire, it's a lost job, you know. Uh or it's you know, oftentimes we we meet up with and have situations of single moms that had five minutes to grab as much crap as they can, throw it in a garbage bag, grab their kids, jump in the car, and take off. You know, that's a real situation. And and you know, and these kids suffer from it, uh, you know, and and so the least we can do as fellow humans, fellow community members, is to provide that for them. Because, you know, uh food, clothing, shelter. These are the three three big the big three I call, right? But beds unfortunately are a luxury for these families, and they and they shouldn't be. That shouldn't be a luxury for a kid to have a bed. And you know, the funny thing is, I guess not a funny thing, the the sad reality is I I didn't know how bad child bedlessness was, right? There were two things that happened that kind of woke me up. The first thing was when I when I said, okay, this family Christmas project that we've been running a couple years, I can't finance this myself, and other people wanted to donate money. I better become a charity. So, like anybody, I I went to the internet to try to find a charity that was providing beds for kids, so I can kind of see how they did it and what they did. And I I mean, I had no business starting a charity, uh, but I was gonna figure it out. Well, come to find out, there was one charity in the entire country that I found that were providing beds for kids, just one. And it was in North Carolina, clear on the other side of the country. That was shocker number one. And then shocker number two was as we, of course, delivered beds and shared what we're doing, I started getting calls from social workers from CASA, you know, Child Protective Services, all these agencies, foster care situations, and I was like their favorite guy. And I found out, they told me, they said, Luke, you don't realize, you know, transitioning homelessness, the these kids and these families trying to get back on their feet. Finding a bed for a child is most of the time, or oftentimes, the single hardest thing for these agencies to provide. And when you realize it's because there's no other organization or no other agency that's providing it. You know, those two things really shocked me. You know, and we started looking into it more and more. Now we know, and then the the only statistic that we have is something that we sleep inly peace has have come up with uh just over the last 14 years. We know it's greater than 3% of the total population. There is over 12 million kids that are affected by child bedlessness in our country. And the sad reality is we only cover about 3.5 million of those. We only cover about 28% of the geographical area of the United States. And think about this. Right now, as you and I talk, Justin, there's 150,000 kids in the country that don't have beds right now. And that's only 28% that we know of. Can you imagine if that number was 100%? There's 70% of the of the population that don't even know we exist. And we're at 150,000 kids. You know, we're going to build 400,000 beds this year, but we know when you're looking at 12 million plus, you know, that's a that's a long way to go, right? So we know that raising awareness about child bedlessness, bringing this to people's attention, that that like me, like most people, had no idea that this was that big of a deal, but it really is. And there's a solution for it. You know, we're the largest bed building charity in the world. It's not a bragging thing, it's actually a sad reality. That's because there's not very many, right? And and we want people to know that you can be a part of this, right? We built almost 90,000 beds last year. We're growing super fast because we put on chapters every year. We put about 50, 60 chapters every year. You know, people that come go to our website, shpbeds.org, they realize there's not a chapter close to them, so they want to start one. This is something they're really passionate about. So we provide that mechanism for them, right? Or people go to our website, like I said, shpbeds.org, and you're gonna see what it's what's gonna come up is your local chapter. You're gonna see what's going on locally, you're gonna see that how many kids are needed or how many kids are on the waiting list. You're gonna see how many kids they've helped, you're gonna see events that you can be a part of, you can donate. 90 plus percent of your donation stays in the chapter that you select. 90, right? We I gotta pull 10 because I gotta pay for bills and stuff, yeah. Like any organization. But we we scrape together as much as we can and make sure it stays in the community. Uh that it that you specifically want it to know. You know, when I started sleeping out of the peace, it wasn't gonna be a charity, but when it did, I remember thinking, listen, I don't want to be one of these big charities where you donate money and it goes to a big pot, you have no idea where it ends up, right? With sleeping on the peace, when you donate money to a specific chapter, you know it 90% stays in there. We're very transparent about that because we want people to know that the sacred dollar, little granny's little granny's hundred dollars that got donated, we want that to go to the best use possible. And I'm really actually happy to say, because of our buying power, because of how frugal and how amazing our vendors are and and sponsors, partner, partners, you know, we create we we actually take one dollar and turn it into at least a dollar thirty. That's how far we can stretch that dollar out, right? So, um, so it's really it's really important for us to to raise awareness and let people know, listen, this yes, is going on in your own community, right next door. You know, child bedlessness doesn't know economics, it doesn't know geography or culture or or political or even religious uh uh environments, it doesn't care. It only knows hardship, it only knows you know, trouble and and um sacrifice and and pain, you know, it's a terrible thing. And now that we know about it, we as human beings can help these little humans by being involved, by doing something. And if all you can do, my ask you today, if all you can do is just open your mouth and share this podcast, share what you heard today, let people know in the in the grocery store. Hey, did you hear about child bedlessness? You never know who's listening. You know, you could have a mom sitting behind you that doesn't have beds for their kids and she has no idea what to do about it. You might have a social worker that doesn't know about it. You might have a school teacher or a school counselor that has witnessed these things and yet suffer in silence because they don't know that there's a there's a a uh a cause or a a purpose or not a purpose, a solution to this problem, right? And that's gonna happen if we just open our mouths, you know.

Speaker 33:16

Yeah, and and then and here you say uh you know that there's only one other organization in the United States, um, other other than yours, that uh that word of mouth, that person uh watches our show, other other shows, listens to our show, other shows, just hearing that hopefully, and it's sad to say, it should shock people that this is happening and that in our own communities, in our own country, that this is really like a little bit of an epidemic uh uh of course. 100%, yeah.

Tiny Moments And The Desire To Act

Speaker 1 33:58

100%, you know, and yeah, and since we've started, I'm happy to say that we have more nonprofits that have come up, even there's been two or three that have started as chapters with Sleep and Only Peace and now have their own uh bedbuilding charity, which is great. You know, we we want there's trust me, there's more kids out there than one charity can handle, and and and that's great, right? But we do know we have a process that works very well, right? And and this is only going to be solved by the local community, right? Yeah, we're a big national organization, but we don't look at ourselves that way, right? We're just a group of a bunch of individuals, human beings helping other human beings across the country. And and here's the best part about service, right? And I and I do a lot of keynote speaking about tiny moments, right? You know, we all have them. We all get that itch or that thought or that inspiration of trying to do something, or maybe we should step in. And the sad reality is we we dismiss those tiny moments far too easily, you know, we're too busy, or you know, that doesn't really affect me, or or I can't make that big of a difference, you know, or someone else is doing it. All these all these excuses that we we tell ourselves, right? The fact of the matter is, is you know, you if you would just act on one of those tiny moments, as small as it may be, maybe. I'll give you a great example. I didn't build that second bed with my kids because I knew child bedlessness was a problem. I had no idea. I had solved the one child sleeping on the floor that I knew, right? It was about providing a service for my kids. I wanted them to feel the joy of giving back, to appreciate the things I had. That was the first purpose. But because I'd acted on that, that's what uncovered so many other amazing opportunities and possibilities that that you know, once you make that first yes, once you act on that first desire to act, then it becomes easier and easier. And that's when you know worlds change. And I tell people, listen, you you act on a tiny moment, you might not change the world, but you're gonna change someone's world. And you know what? That someone might just be you, and that's great. You know, get yourself right. Once we once we are feeling happy and content with ourselves and and feel confident that we can make a difference, then you're gonna make a difference, right? And it's okay if you have to work on yourself first. But but I'm telling you right now, like there are opportunities to serve, not just with sleep in Emily Peace, but opportunities to change not just people's lives near you, but your own life. Because it's changed mine and and nothing but for the good. You know, there are challenges down the road and building an organization and taking time and sacrifice. These are all important parts of your tiny moment, important parts of making life fulfilling for yourself and for others around. I just hope I'm encouraging and inspiring others to follow that because that's where real magic happens. That's where the real miracles in life happen is through through following tiny moments, um, working on, and this is this is critical. I I share in my keynotes this. You have to have a desire to change, and I think we all do, right? But the second step is the is the most critical of that, right? And that's the desire to act. And that desire to act needs to be stronger than your desire to change. We all want to change, and how many times do we talk about it? Right, right. But if you don't work on your desire to act, right? Not I mean, you got to work on it more than your desire to change, then it'll just stay a dream, right? So, and and the the the desire to act, right? To work on that means to have to say yes once in a while. You have to get off the couch, even as small as it is, even as small as just to get out in the garage and build a bed with your kids, right? You never know. You might be you might be building the largest bed-building charity in the world and you don't even know it.

Speaker 38:12

That's so true. And and I'd love to say the tiny moments because I feel the same same way with our organization and uh with mental health and trauma and and all those things, that a lot of times I'm one of the biggest beneficiaries of what what we do, and it's because uh, like you said, you you have to act and and you gotta have to you know work on yourself and get to that point to say, okay, like this feels good. It feels good because I'm helping myself, no matter how small the win might be, that small win for us could be exponential for another person. And is um I love how you you piece that uh together because it's so true, and it's um it's like anything. You have to be passionate about what what you're doing for others to kind of feed off of feed off of that. And and uh you can't it's hard to sell something if you're just kind of just like, hey, come buy this thing, or hey, come donate to this organization, and you're not really bought in yourself.

Speaker 1 39:30

Well, you know, I I learned, especially when I was going through that time when Snipping Out of the Peace started, you know, you we all want a purpose of life, right? And you know, it doesn't have to be so dramatic and heavy as like your sole purpose, right? But when you have purpose, and I train on business leaders this, when you provide purpose for your employees, even for yourself, right, they become far better employees. They they they become vested into your organization. And personally, right, when you find your purpose in life, right, that's what it's about. Well, I talk about making passion, how passion is made purpose or passion makes purpose, right? Um, when you find that passion about something, um you know, that then that becomes a purpose in your life. And when you find that, your your mind, your the possibilities, your talents just get increased tenfold. I mean, I have no business being a marketer. I don't know. I'm a salesman, I'm not a marketer, right? But for some reason, when it comes to sleep and only peace, I had so many amazing ideas and and thoughts and things that have been successful, things that have not great success, but so many great ideas and thoughts that I would not have otherwise thought about because the passion now turned into purpose, and that purpose is what drives us, you know, and we all want it. You know, when when people are down and depressed, you know, a lot of times it's because they don't feel like they they mean anything, they don't have any purpose to their existence, right? Um passion brings that, passion makes purpose, and um and that all starts with working on that desire to act and then and then executing, and um starting on the smallest, tiniest moments is how we build that.

How To Donate Or Start A Chapter

Speaker 41:26

Excellent. We're getting close to the end of our time, uh, and I know you've mentioned it uh through throughout, but uh, can you just go through the full pitch, uh how people can find out more about how they can uh may start a chapter, donate, all the things.

Speaker 1 41:42

So, yes, please visit shpbeds.org, sleepinheavenlypeace beds.org. Um that that, like I said, it'll bring up the local website, the local chapter to you. There'll be ways to donate the um in-kind donations, they're all twin-sized, the same beds built in Alaska as it is in Hawaii. Um, you know, uh, so you can you can donate brand new sheets and mattresses if you want, you can donate dollars. Um, you can get involved. Every chapter needs help. Every chapter needs what we call a core team member, someone that can be there on a fairly regular basis, help teach people how to build beds, deliver beds. It's the most amazing experience, right? Um, if if you know of a child, please fill out an application for them. Let your social workers know that this is a this is a an opportunity, this is a solution to these to these problems. And then, like you said, if there's no chapter near you, and this is something that really pulls at your heartstrings and you want to get involved in your own community and start something and and help, you can start a chapter for Sleep and Emily Peace. Um, and you know, we we train you uh uh very successfully. We only lose one or two chapters a year, and that's usually because someone moves. So our process is pretty pretty rock solid. Um, because we want you to be successful. We make it as easy as possible for you. You know, we just tell chapters, look, just focus in on raising money, building and delivering beds. That's all. We take care of all the other administration mumbo jumbo that that comes with running an organization. You don't have to worry about that, right? We just want you to worry about your own community, getting other people involved in the community. You'll be known as the the bed building guy or gal, you know, which is a great honor, you know. Uh, and and and anybody can do it. Listen, I'm a farm kid from Idaho. I don't portray anything other than that because I want people to realize hey, if a farm kid from Idaho can do it, anybody, anybody can do it.

Speaker 43:45

Excellent. And the uh this went through their website, and then as far as social media, is it very similar to that?

Speaker 1 43:54

Oh, yeah, sleep, sleep in heavenly peace. If you want to uh every chapter has its own Facebook page, which you'll find on the website. Website. You're looking for me personally, just type in Luke Mickelson, you know, or SHP Luke. You'll find me. Love to hear from you. If you have any questions, love to answer those, give you some more information. You know, again, we're we're just a group of humans trying to help other humans. And you're a human being, right? No matter what you are, whether what religion or or political political stance or culture, it doesn't matter. We're all human beings. Let's help each other out through this time of life. We only have one trip around this blue dot, right? We can help each other out enjoy enjoy it while we can.

Closing Thanks And Final Challenge

Speaker 44:35

Great. Anything that we didn't touch on, Luke? I think we got it. I hope so.

Speaker 1 44:40

Thanks for having me on. And you know what, Justin, thanks for having a podcast because we wouldn't be able to, us guests, we wouldn't be able to voice our messages out unless we had someone like yourself that takes time um and effort and sometimes a lot of money, personal money, to get something produced. And so th thank you on behalf of all your listeners for taking the time to do so.

Speaker 45:02

Yeah, you're you're welcome. And that's uh that's our our goal is you know help one person at a time. And uh we we can't help uh like as you mentioned, you can't help everybody in the world, but we can change the world for one person, and then that one person could maybe down the road help another person, and and that's really uh you know, just being a human and and uh being a part of humanity. And uh just so thank you so much for reaching out. Thank you. Because if it wasn't for you reaching out, um uh we we uh we wouldn't have had this awesome opportunity to to share and learn so much. And uh our listeners, all our viewers, uh please reach out, please uh see what you can do personally. And if if you're not able to reach out in your community, if you're a community leader, just like Luke mentioned, word of mouth, let people know that this is a it's a crisis, it's happening. And um we we can do as much as we can do, and like you said, it could be the you know the the the bed building and guy or gal in the community. If uh donating is your thing, you have that opportunity to do that. And if you want us, you want to start a chapter, uh that would be fantastic too. So we we are grateful to Luke to have reached out to us to be able to have this opportunity to to share because we uh we're I never thought we'd get to the point that we would reach so many different countries and cities. It's uh it's mind-blowing. And so we want, no matter where you're at in the world, start a chapter if if you don't have one there, uh, or see what you can do and and help others and your community, or you may know somebody in another country that you might be able to help. Um, and we're just we're just grateful to have so many awesome people that are doing such great work. Um, yeah, I get kind of shivers, you know, talking about what what you you do, Luke, and and with uh sleep in heavenly peace, because it it it it's something just I mean, I I kind of you know just uh I don't know, kind of the fact that I overlook some things and it it's like man, like but we can't do anything. We just have to kind of move on from where we're at and and see what we can do to to help. And and I know from the server's point of view, once it gets started, it's one of the happiest, most less while there is a little bit of stress, uh, it feels so much better than sometimes uh other other things do. And and that's the big thing. It's like, hey, you can help make a difference not only for a person, but you that person may also be yourself. So thanks to Luke.

Speaker 1 48:23

Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. And uh yeah, and and look look forward to maybe the next time we get a talk.

Speaker 48:30

Absolutely, yeah. Reach out, definitely. We'd love to have you on as as as time goes on. Just uh reach out, we'll get you, we'll get you a slot, no, no doubt.

Speaker 1 48:41

Thank you, sir.

Speaker 48:42

And thanks to our viewers and listeners. Please uh reach out, learn more about sleep in heavenly peace and Luke Nicholson. It's been a pleasure and a blessing. Uh grateful to have the opportunity to have a gentleman uh like this who is making such a big difference in in the world. And uh we're sending our our love and support to Luke and his team, uh, everywhere they may be, and then and the human beings that uh don't know yet that uh will will be uh will be joining his team. So thank you, and we will see you on our next episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. And I've been your host, Justin Alan Hayes, founder of Voices for Voices, and our guest today has been Luke Mickelson, Asleep in Heavenly Peace. Have a great day, everyone. Bye-bye for now.