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Helping others sleep tight

Sisters Jennifer and Molly Krog volunteered with a

Minnesota nonprofit to help give kids in need beds to sleep in.

Giving others a warm place to sleep has become a family project for two sisters from southwest Minnesota. Over the past year, Jennifer and Molly Krog, both students at Minneota High School, have gotten involved with a Minnesota nonprofit group that provides beds for children in need. To help out, they’ve made blankets, delivered mattresses and helped set up beds for some very thankful kids.

“The kids were really excited about having something colorful in their rooms,” Jennifer Krog said of the blankets she helped make.

Jennifer and Molly, daughters of Kelly and Nancy Krog of rural Arco, said they first learned about a nonprofit called Beds For Kids through their extended family. Beds For Kids, which was founded in 2010 by Jim and Sarah Packard, serves Steele and Waseca counties. Families can apply for a bed for a child between the ages of two and 17 years old, who may not have a bed of their own to sleep in. Beds For Kids provides a metal bed frame, a twin mattress and box spring, and sheets and blankets to make up the bed with.

Jennifer and Molly said it sounded like a good cause. Plus, an annual family gathering in the area gave the them an opportunity to start a service project. Both girls are members of the Minneota FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America), and as part of the FCCLA Leadership Service In Action program, they made blankets to donate to Beds For Kids, and went on two trips to volunteer with the group.

“We decided to set up a date in December to deliver beds,” Jennifer Krog said. The girls also received a $250 Thrivent Action Team grant to help cover the cost of fabric for making fleece tie blankets.

“We ended up making 16 total,” Molly Krog said.

“Molly would cut, and I would tie,” Jennifer said, describing their blanket-making process.

“Over winter break, we brought it to Christmas with the cousins,” Molly Krog said, and everyone helped tie the knots that held the blanket edges together. “Then it went really fast.”

One of the real challenges, the girls said, was finding fabric colors and patterns that would work well for boys – they ended up using a lot of plaid.

In December, the girls helped deliver seven beds to families in need. Then, in March, the girls and their extended family teamed up for more volunteer work with Beds For Kids. They helped set up 17 more beds that day.

“It was really fun to do,” Jennifer Krog said. At Beds For Kids’ facility in Owatonna, they saw sets of sheets and blankets organized by gender and age, and volunteers would pull out appropriate sets whenever there were new deliveries to make.

At each stop, Molly Krog said, “We’d bring in the mattress, and the box spring and the bed frame,” and help get them set up.

“We didn’t really know what to expect,” she said of the homes they visited. Some families were crowded into small homes or apartments, and not everyone had their own bed. One boy they met had been sleeping on the floor, after his old bed frame broke.

“It wasn’t all in one type of neighborhood, either,” Nancy Krog said of the deliveries the family made. “We were all over Owatonna.”

“We had some kids who were two or three years old and some who were like, 15,” Jennifer Krog said. Some of the younger kids were really excited to see their new beds arrive.

“It was crazy to see kids my own age, and imagine them not having a bed,” Molly Krog said. The experience really drove home the impact of the work Beds For Kids was doing.

After a morning of delivering beds, she said, “It was quiet for a little bit, and then we were like, ‘Wow.'”

Molly and Jennifer documented their project and successfully presented it at this year’s FCCLA regional and Minnesota state conferences. The girls will be among the eight Minneota students traveling to the national conference in July.

“You go and present to a judge, or judges,” Jennifer Krog said, and explain the planning process and purpose of the project. The presentation is about nine minutes long, she said.

The girls said they hope to keep helping Beds For Kids. Jennifer Krog said the need for beds in the area is still strong. A total of 160 beds were delivered to families in 2014, and 249 beds were delivered in 2015.

“And that’s just in two counties,” she said.

Beds For Kids accepts monetary donations, and new supplies like bedding. More information on the organization and current needs can be found online at bedsforkidsmn.org.

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