Furnishing the Homeless Community as a Part of Business

Flat Rate Moving is taking furniture donations and giving it to needy programs in a partnership with Furnish A Future. This provides homeless and needy families with the homes they need to start over.

New York City, NY December 22, 2004 -- Christmas Wish: Dignity and a Real Home.

In New York Citywhere the average apartment sells for over $1 milliona record 9,000 families, 16,000 of them children, are homeless today. And families leaving the shelters for new, permanent homes rarely have the income to buy home furnishings. Because FlatRate Moving believes that an apartment without furniture is simply not a home, they are teaming up with The Partnership for the Homeless to pick up furniture from giving donors and delivering it to needy families. This means those who need it will get the furniture sofas, dressers, chairs, tables, desks, and other necessities--to make their homes a real home.

The Partnerships furniture bank, Furnish a Future, helps transform empty apartments into comfortable, secure homes for thousands of formerly homeless families and individuals each year. This holiday season, FlatRate is aiding The Partnership with the very services they make their business from every day. FlatRates moving trucks will be sent out across the boroughs, collecting new and gently-used furniture that their owners no longer want. FlatRate will transport the furniture to The Partnerships warehouse, and also help deliver them to families in need. General Manager Eric Kleper said, If we can put smiles on even one familys faces this holiday season, thats making a difference.

By partnering with this nonprofit organization, FlatRate has committed dozens of trucks and even more drivers, movers and coordinators to help move the furniture so many need. The organization will help FlatRate connect with the extremely low-income families who so desperately need home furnishings. Furthermore, FlatRate hopes to keep this Program as part of their business year-round, by continuing to donate good quality, unwanted furniture to The Partnership for the Homeless.

New Yorkers are urged to donate unwanted pieces of furniture in good condition at: http://www.flatrate.com/donations.

Sharone Ben-Harosh, who founded FlatRate Moving in 1991, says, I came over from Israel and started this business on my own. On the way, there were so many people who touched my life, helping my business along. Now, its my turn to give back.
   
Thanks to FlatRate Movings generous contribution of trucks, drivers and many additional resources, thousands of New York Citys once-homeless children will be able to sit down at a table for dinner, read a book on the family sofa, or study at their own deskactivities that most of us take for granted, said Arnold S. Cohen, President & CEO of The Partnership for the Homeless.

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