A grand opening event for a local non-profit will be held this weekend in Lansdale Borough.
The non-profit, called Marvin’s Home, transforms homes for those in need with donated, upcycled, or new furniture and accessories. Marvin’s Home started three years ago and has outgrown their three storage units. They will be moving to a new location at 810 West Main Street, where there will be a store in the front called Home on Main that will sell some of their donations.
Funds raised at the store will support the organization. The event is scheduled for Saturday, May 14 from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
“[The event] is to invite people to come see the space and see what's happening and be a part of the opening,” said Mel McDaniel, founder of Marvin’s Home.
McDaniel is a former social worker. She runs an interior design business called Mel McDaniel Design, which she started in 2006. Marvin’s Home was her way of intersecting design and social work. McDaniel grew up in a residential school setting and consistently moved houses until she was 30, when she moved to West Philadelphia and got a dog named Marvin.
“My whole work was helping people design their homes, but I had never really experienced that for myself,” McDaniel said. “When I moved and had a home and felt stable and grounded, it just had such a huge impact on me.”
She wanted to start Marvin’s Home to help kids share that same feeling she had when she got her first house.
“We work with kids who have been aged out of the foster care system or who have been homeless, and they're living on their own for the first time and they have nothing,” McDaniel said. “Usually when I go and meet them, they have maybe a mattress, maybe a lawn chair… We come back and they leave, and we make them a home in two to three hours. Then they come back, and they have a home with furniture.”
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before-and-after look at one of the nonprofit’s recent projects. (Credit: Mel
McDaniel) |
The non-profit works with Valley Youth House and is connected with their housing department. The department provides the contact information of those who have expressed interest in working with Marvin’s Home.
The event on Saturday will have a silent auction fundraiser, which will feature art and special items.
McDaniel wants people to recognize how simple it is to donate unwanted furniture to help those in need.
“Some of us have so much and some people have so little,” McDaniel said. “It's such an easy thing to donate the furniture you don't need anymore, and it makes such a huge impact for these kids who are starting out in life with so little and having had already a lot of challenges in life.”
To learn more about Marvin’s Home, click here.
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