Share Our Best Furniture Ministry is a partnership of congregations across our synod to collect gently-used furniture and household items, and share them with people in need.

Founding partners include Hephatha, Milwaukee, which shares beds from the ministry with local children, and Holy Cross, Menomonee Falls, which sources furniture donations from partner churches throughout the northern part of the Synod.

The ministry also collects furniture donated from the estates of those who have passed away. “That’s given [the families] a real sense of comfort, to know that the furniture is going to people who will really appreciate it,” explains Andy Dederich from Holy Cross.

More recently, Outreach for Hope has helped to facilitate additional relationships to expand the ministry further. Breaking the Chains Church, a synod new start based out of Felmers Chaney Correctional Center, Milwaukee, shares furniture and household items with formerly-incarcerated men who are returning to the community. And Faith/Santa Fe, Milwaukee provides a truck to pick up and deliver furniture donations.

Thanks to generous contributions to our synod’s Equipping the Saints mission appeal, Outreach for Hope collaboration grants have also provided funding for a second storage location and a delivery truck maintenance costs. It’s truly been a synod-wide effort, and the impact just keeps growing!

“We have been able to get 28 children in beds over the past year thanks to you,” says Hephatha Council President Alexander Pechauer Bates. “It’s been an absolute joy and pleasure.”

Dederich from Holy Cross adds that “it’s really worked out well, so that we can…help to give people a better way to pray and work together.”

“This is just such a powerful example of what God makes possible when we collaborate,” says Pr. Matt Short from the Greater Milwaukee Synod staff. “This is why we are a synod, walking together!”