The Northwest Furniture Bank, which provides furniture to qualified families in Clark County, will host its first fundraising event, dubbed the Vancouver Chair Affair, on Thursday, Oct. 10.
After half a decade in Vancouver, Executive Director Jeremy Simler believes the Vancouver Chair Affair luncheon will serve the nonprofit and community well. Tickets and more information are available on their website at nwfurniturebank.org/vancou ver-chair-affair/.
“I’m excited to have people hear about what we are doing and also have people partner with us,” Simler said. “There’s going to be an invitation to give, there’s also just an invitation to learn about what we do there, as well. So it’s kind of a two-pronged approach I think, kind of like a fundraiser, friend raiser and an awareness raiser.”
“So, the Northwest Furniture Bank provides furniture for families who are coming out of a transition,” Simler said. “That transition could be anything from a fire or flood, aging out of the foster care system, it could be domestic violence and it could just be a run of hard luck.”
Simler added that the furniture bank does not have income qualifiers and most cases are referred to them from social workers.
“They refer a family to us. They come to us and they receive a household of furniture for a phenomenal processing fee,” Simler said.
The processing fee for what could be a 25-foot U-haul load of furniture is $100 and an extra $125 for delivery to the house of the individual or family, Simler said. He added that in Clark County, the Northwest Furniture Bank serves 35 to 45 families per month.
The idea launched in Tacoma, servicing much of the south Sound metro area with 130-plus families per month. The Northwest Furniture Bank began servicing Vancouver and beyond five years ago and plans to begin construction on its own building off of Mill Plain Boulevard in early 2025.
The expansion to Vancouver took place based on studies and talking to social service agencies, with organizers discovering similarities between Tacoma and the southwest Washington city.
“We did a lot of demographic studies and also interviewed a lot of social service agencies before we decided to move here,” Simler said. “So, Tacoma and Vancouver have a lot of similarities even though they’re two hours apart.”
People interested in donating furniture items can visit nwfurniturebank.org/items-we-accept/ to learn more about accepted items and conditions of the item.
“So when you donate furniture to us, our team will decide whether we’re going to resell that to raise proceeds and revenue for the furniture program or whether we’re going to donate that piece of furniture,” Simler said.
