What Should I Do with the Rest of My Life_ - Bruce Frankel [116]
In time, even the Smiths’ driveway, lawn, and house were not enough to hold all the donated goods. So the Smiths acquired permission to use storage space in the basement of a local Methodist church, an unused carriage house, and a large, privately owned garage. Then they acquired the use of a century-old barn. It didn’t have concrete floors, electric lights, toilets, or heat. When it rained, the odors of its former life as a barn were awakened. One day when the temperature inside the barn hit five below, Ira recalled, “We looked at each other and said, ‘This is it! Either we quit with the big furniture or we get into the fund-raising business and get a big place of our own.’ ”
They had little trouble finding community members willing to serve on a board of directors. Soon, the Smiths were sharing their operation with a swelling cadre of volunteers—who pick up furniture, repair it and all kinds of electronics, assist clients in finding what they need, raise funds, schedule clients’ appointments, keep the financial books, update the agency database and contacts, and work on publicity.
Jill Henderson, a former art and antiques dealer, helped the Smiths raise the capital to rent a legitimate warehouse. She first met them several years earlier when she needed to dispose of thousands of dollars’ worth of brand-new items from an estate sale she was handling. “When I drove up to their house, there were fourteen sofas in the driveway under tarps. At the back door, there was a blue-and-white sign that just said, ‘Think Prayer.’ And then these two warm, smiling saints came down the stairs. The hairs on my arms stood up on end. We bonded, and I’ve been working with them ever since.”
Henderson helped the Smiths send out their first flyers, with Ira and Barbara’s pictures on the front. The response was staggering. “People are beyond generous when they understand what our mission is. And because Barbara and Ira exude calm, serenity, and dignity, people like to be near them,” Henderson said.
For a long time, the Smiths did not recognize how valued they were by their own community. A decade ago, they went to the venerable Concord-Carlyle Community Chest and apologetically asked for a $25,000 grant to rent the warehouse where HGRM is still housed. “We promise, we won’t come back to you for more money next year,” Ira told Community Chest director Astrid Williams.
“No, please do come back,” Williams said as she assured Ira and Barbara that as long as the Household Goods Recycling Ministry continued to serve as many people locally as it did, the Community Chest would support its efforts. And each year since 1999, the Community Chest has given HGRM $10,000. The Smiths have remained humble and appreciative, Williams said, and their organization has continued to serve as a model of volunteerism and community assistance.
“They give without interrogating. People come to them for help and leave with their dignity intact. They have a well-run organization in which their volunteers convey the empathy Ira and Barbara transmit. It is one of our favorite organizations. So many times, it’s hard to measure the impact an organization really has. But when you go to HGRM, you really see people’s lives transformed in the space of three hours,” she said.
Without trying, Ira and Barbara inspire others. “They set a high standard of what you can do with this life,” said board member Joseph Chappell, a successful forty-seven-year-old software company consultant and former CEO of several software companies, including one that sold for $240 million a few years ago. “They created an environment that motivates people and brings out the best, just by how they treat people. You look at them and you wonder how it can be work, if they’re having such a good time.” Chappell himself now drives one of HGRM’s trucks to make pickups three days a week. “It’s tiring, but I’m happy to be a part of it. Barb and Ira have a spirit that infects other people