Project Brooklyn – Home Is Where the Heart Is

Team AFR^®

We hear the phrase – home is where the heart is – a lot. Especially in the business we are in of furnishing homes and spaces. But if it’s true, which of course it is, then for three families in the Brooklyn area, when Super Storm Sandy hit, the loss of their homes meant the loss of heart and hope.

Although it’s been almost four years since the massive storm surged inland, destroying a plethora of homes with major flooding, that hasn’t even time enough to erase the memory or the devastation. Dilapidated homes and living conditions still exist throughout the Eastern seaboard.

AFR^® has been on a mission to change all that.

Working this past May with our friends at the St. Bernard Project, their affiliate, Friends of Rockaway, and the Greater New York Division of the Salvation Army, we joined them in the third year helping put families back in their own homes and beds.

During those years, SBP has expanded its service area into Southern Brooklyn, Queens and Jamaica, New York, areas that were underserved by recovery funding. Which is where our team, led by Jenna Ermack, Marketing Coordinator, and Norman Iamoka, VP of Purchasing, was headed. The two had amassed an army of 40 AFR^® volunteers that included AFR^® employees, family and vendors, and were tackling work on not just one, but three houses.

Welcome Home!

While two of the houses were in need of larger renovations, the house belonging to the Aideyan family was the closest to being a home again. “With such a large team of volunteers were able to give back at three different locations that day. Our teams worked hard doing everything from demo, mold remediation and dry wall on two houses, while others were busy at the Aideyan’s transforming their house into a home and getting ready for the big reveal,” Ermack said.

AFR^® donated $20,000 towards the building supplies needed to complete construction and repair on the Aideyan home, and with the help of our vendors, we were also able to donate all the furnishings -- sofas, beds, dining tables, lamps, desks, bedding, and décor accessories down to the smallest detail.

When the Aideyans crossed the threshold at the end of the day, it was clear that home is not only where one’s heart is, but where hundreds of hearts are. AFR^® is proud to beat as one with those hearts of friends, family and community and continue our work in areas left devastated by Super Storm Sandy.

Please contact jermack@rentfurniture.com for more information on how you can get involved with AFR^® Gives Back projects!

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