A mattress is more than just a mattress.

“It’s crazy how just a mattress can keep a child out of Department of Child Safety custody and with their loving families,” – Steve Vogel, Developmental Director, Phoenix Dream Center

For many families across the United States, a mattress is the difference between being placed in foster care or staying with their own families.                                

We’ve been proud to work with the Phoenix Dream Center since 2015 to donate over one thousand beds to their residential programs and the Thrive Foster Care Prevention Program. Thrive’s mission is to ensure that loving families in Arizona are able to stay together through provided housing, food and beds.

The Department of Child Safety (or Child Protective Services) requires three items in the house in order for the home to be suitable for a child: 1) A bed of their own, 2) A place to heat food, and 3) a constant supply of food. Giving each child in a home their own, clean mattress has the power to keep a family together.

Our mission in action

In each of our giving events, team members from Leesa visit with the recipients so that they can hear firsthand their stories.

We met Vada, a Thrive program recipient and mom of four, just as her two youngest daughters were waking up from a nap in their new home.

Vada was so happy to be in her new home–decorated with furniture that she renovates and turns into beautifully vibrant pieces of art–where she and her children have created their own safe sanctuary.

The team at Thrive was coming by with toys for the kids, household furnishings and new Leesa mattresses and pillows for her kids.

"When you leave everything you own with just a suitcase and you wake up with people surrounding you and beds and your kids are happy and you have a really tight support network around you, there's really nothing that can explain that [feeling].”

Watch the video below to see Vada’s house truly turn into a home.