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Like a scene from Santa’s Workshop the Chisago Lakes High School’s woodworking and power tool rooms were hustling with activity last weekend. There were 110 volunteers who answered a call put out by the Lions Club and the organization “Sleep in Heavenly Peace” to lend a hand and assemble the pre-cut pieces.  After about four to five hours they had 50 new beds assembled and ready to be delivered to youth who lack actual beds.

Lions Club was supported by local non-profits like Rotary, Good Neighbors, Knights of Columbus, local fire relief associations for Lindstrom and Chisago City departments, Riley Hoheisel (Trevor Hoheisel Scholarship Fund), Weaver Family Foundation.  Lowe’s works with the Sleep in Heavenly Peace group and provided power tools and hardware to make this a success too. The Lions spearheaded a collection to help fund the effort and raised $10,000, and private donors Tom Kieffer, Michael Grey and Donna Lunde were highlighted among the community contributions.

The beds come with their own handmade quilt donated by the Lindstrom Quilters.

High school shop instructor Scott Leffler and many students welcomed the invasion of their shop space by volunteers and even demonstrated

 tools and also helped store the finished beds for distribution.

“It was amazing to be part of,” Lions member Kevin Stenson remarked. “Participants were on a high all day feeling good.”

He said the Sleep in Heavenly Peace organization, which is based in White Bear Lake, see SHPbeds.org — reports that this build event was the biggest they’ve been involved in, by almost double. 

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