Fill in the blanks:
Fifteen minutes can…
Like a good neighbor…
The best part of waking up…
Did you hear the music jingle when you read the words? Yeah, us too. Businesses spend millions of dollars a day to get their name and product in front of our faces, in our ears, and buried deep in our brains. Well, for profit businesses, anyway.
2020 was a banner year for home improvement stores
Think back over the last 9 months. After you uncurl from the fetal position (sorry), remember what you were able to control in your life. Did you suffer from cabin fever while sheltering in place? Did you decide to start redecorating, remodeling, and reconfiguring your personal habitat in an effort to stay sane? Did you pack up boxes of stuff you never needed or seldom used and bring it to a charitable retail donation center? (If you answered yes to that last one, give yourself a high five for us.)
Those questions were the zeitgeist of 2020.
According to a report from Mastercard SpendingPulse, the holiday season saw furniture and furnishing sales rise 6.2%, while spending on home improvement rose 14.1%. Electronic and appliance sales also followed suit, increasing by 6%. https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/27/business/holiday-shopping-retail-sales-mastercard/index.html
Our homes have become our refuge and our penitentiary. The least we can do is decorate the bars, right?
Help your neighbors help themselves
Habitat for Humanity knows the value of a safe shelter. We do our best, every day across the globe, to bring that security to families in need. Our ReStores help raise money for that mission by selling home improvement items at a fraction of retail prices. Our advocacy and advertising prices are also a fraction of what our big box brothers have at hand. There are no catchy jingles or radio ads playing into your ears every 30 minutes. No hourly promotional emails busying up your inbox. We rely on our staff, volunteers, donors, and customers to spread the message that we are here and able to help!
If you read this far, please share our story with a homeowning friend you know. You don’t have to lift a hammer to help, but a couple taps of the keyboard go a long way. We want more folks walking in our door saying, “I never knew you were here until _______ told me about you!”