The goal of Deserving Designs is to help homeless and low-income people.
To do that, the not-for-profit will use two methods: providing “gently used” home furnishings to those who need them — including people in transitional housing — and selling that furniture to the public, using the money to keep the operation going and help those who need help.
Margy Boyce, the CEO of Deserving Designs, hopes to have the showroom, warehouse and refurbishing areas in operation within two months, and already the volunteers and have painted the inside of 1515 Roosevelt Road in Valparaiso and collected some bedroom and living room sets, as well as have redone the electrical systems.
“It’s beginning to look like a furniture store,” Boyce said about the building across from Thomas Jefferson Elementary School.
She brought plans for the building to the March 28 Site Review Committee with landlords Joyce and Don Miller.
For the last four years, Boyce had been furnishing apartments for permanent and transitional apartments through the Caring Place, getting help from friends Amy Pixley and Lisa Wanek, who are now employees.
She started that after seeing a television show with women redoing a shelter, but Boyce said she wanted to take it a step further.
Often the people move from transitional housing with only their clothes in a sack, and she wanted them to have something when they move into more permanent situations.
She estimates that her volunteers helped 70 women and families with thousands of dollars of goods with that project.
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“We just needed a bigger space. The inventory was coming in like crazy,” she said.
She met Joyce Miller at another resale shop and talked with her and something clicked, she said.
“I needed a renter,” Miller said. The landscape business and garden shop moved out a few months earlier.
However, because Deserving Designs is a charity, she’s given the organization a year of free rent as it becomes more public.
It was time for her to give back, and it’s given her and Don something to do, she said.
The Millers and others, including Pam Pangeres and James Tudor worked at redoing the floors and Owen Todd acted as engineer and handyman.
Volunteers and staff restore furniture in the back warehouse, reupholstering and repainting, and set it in the showroom in sets, stressing interior design, Boyce said.
And if they sell items to the public, more money comes in to help those in need and help with expenses, she added.
Deserving Designs is working with Housing Opportunities and other groups in Porter County and is looking for quality home furnishings, especially sofas and dressers.
Although they have 25-30 volunteers, they’re always looking for more, especially those who can lift and can make Saturday pickups and handle drop offs from Tuesday through Saturday, when they’re open.
Those who want to donate or volunteer can reach Deserving Designs at 219-771-4102.
James D. Wolf Jr. is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.