When a family falls on hard times, often there is no one to assist. Or if a professional loses a job to downsizing, and has no backup plan, he or she is too ashamed to ask. Good people sometimes simply need a hand up. The world can be a hard place, unless you find a soft place to fall. Enter Flourish Furniture Bank.
Amy Cox, Executive Director, explained how this giving, volunteer-driven organization came into being.
“Flourish began when a gentleman who worked for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) often observed families that were housed but were living without furniture and basic home essentials,” she noted. “This meant the entire family was sleeping and eating on the floor and were eating out of disposable containers with no cookware to prepare meals. He observed the impact of living in this way on both the adults and the children in these families and approached his church, Resurrection, A United Methodist Church, to see if they would support a ministry to help bridge this gap in the community.”
Resurrection responded to this need and a ministry was created, originally called My Father's House. After its rebranding as Flourish, this group of volunteers became a 501c3 nonprofit in order to continue to grow in the community in November of 2019.
Flourish is the only non-profit furniture bank in Kansas City and offers an entire home of furniture and home essentials such as towels, bedding, dishes, cookware, small appliances, artwork, decor and much more to families that have experienced housing instability.
“Every family that comes to Flourish does so through a referral from a case manager at one of our more than 80 social service agency partners,” Cox continued. “Those partners serve kids aging out of foster care, veterans, individuals who have experienced domestic violence, and many others. This service they offer victims is unique to other donation services, as they assist the individual person in need with a private appointment, allowing them to make the decision for themselves which is very empowering for a lot of people coming from controlling or abusive situations.
Another service that makes them truly unique from other donation sites is that they will actually arrange for items to be picked up from your home, so you don’t need to do any heavy lifting and hauling. Find details about this on their website.
“In 2024, Flourish provided a full home of furniture and furnishings to 1,302 and have scaled our capacity to be able to serve 1,500 families in 2025. At the same time, Flourish is known as the place where Compassion Meets Sustainability,” she enamored. “As such, we were able to keep more than 1 million pounds of items from going to landfills in 2024 through our workshops where we repair and repurpose items. Some of those workshop areas include woodworking, electrical, dish packing, and sewing/upholstery.”
“This spring, we will host our Second Annual Running of the Beds event on Saturday, April 26 at the Summit Church in Lee's Summit,” she smiled. “It's a bed race on wheels!”
You can find out more about Flourish, volunteering, donating and upcoming events at flourishfurniturebank.org