The MAP Furniture Bank works to fill the empty spaces in people's lives, 10TV's Lindsey Seavert reported.
Jessica Sheldon uses the furniture bank to help others make their house a home.
"I am shopping for a family of 10 - a homeless veteran and his wife and their eight children," Sheldon said. "They lost everything after they were evicted."
"We had needed nine beds today, and we were able to get six, we needed two couches and four dressers and we got those," Sheldon said.
MAP's President Jim Stein said 2009 has brought too many similar stories - so many that the furniture bank is having trouble keeping up.
"We've got requests for help going up, furniture coming in going down, so more and more we are having to say to families these days, 'I just can't help you because I don't have enough furniture,'" Stein said.
Donations of gently used furniture are down about one third, Seavert reported, so the furniture bank has gotten creative.
Workers are now helping fill the need by making furniture.
"I have a vision of somebody sitting around it, enjoying a dinner - it means that somebody will be enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner at a table rather than the floor, or not having a Thanksgiving dinner at all," said volunteer Glenn Dickey. "There should be enough furniture in this community, if more people knew we were an option and that we provided free pickup, we could help more of these families."
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