Giving Rye: Meet Furniture Sharehouse
Giving Rye is a new occasional feature highlighting non-profits and community groups in and around the City of Rye. Today meet Kate Bialo of Furniture Sharehouse.
Your Name: Kate Bialo
Organization: Furniture Sharehouse
Your role: Founder and Executive Director (volunteer)
MyRye.com: Tell us your organization’s mission.
Bialo: Our mission: working to end furniture poverty. As Westchester’s only furniture bank, we collect gently-used furniture and give it a second life by distributing it for free to economically disadvantaged families and individuals in Westchester County. We keep thousands of pounds of furniture out of the waste stream while furnishing hundreds of homes each year for the people who need it the most.
How long have you operated in Rye?
Bialo: Since opening our doors in 2007.
What programming or work in Rye is the organization best known for?
Bialo: We offer free furniture assistance to families and individuals in need referred to us by member social service agencies throughout Westchester County.
Looking forward to 2025, what will be your top initiatives?
Bialo:
- We will continue to provide basic essential furniture to families living in empty apartments because they cannot afford even the most basic furniture.
- We will continue to work to raise awareness of furniture poverty in Westchester, in an effort to increase furniture and monetary donations and enable us to furnish even more families in need.
Tell us about the population you serve and how they can get involved with your programming and services.
Bialo:
Our client population includes:
- Those moving out of homeless shelters into permanent housing
- Women and children escaping domestic violence
- Working families living in extreme poverty
- Veterans struggling with financial hardship
- Young adults aging out of foster care
- Victims of natural disasters
- Newly arrived refugees with no belongings
What they have in common is that they lack the financial means to buy any furnishings, even at thrift store prices. Even when they can secure housing, they may still be sleeping and eating on the floor, and living out of plastic bags.
We work with 45 member social service agencies who refer their clients to us when they need furniture and can’t afford it. Furniture Sharehouse provides each household with beds and dressers, couches, kitchen tables and chairs, armchairs, lamps, rugs, artwork, household items and more. Clients are given the opportunity to hand select their furnishings to suit their tastes and needs with the help of our volunteer personal shoppers, and they are always very appreciative of the respect they receive during their “shopping experience”.
People in need of furniture should contact one of the Member Agencies listed on our website under “Get Furniture” to try to obtain a referral to Furniture Sharehouse.
Are you a 501(c)(3) non-profit with tax exempt status?
Bialo: Yes.
Looking back across 2024, what were your organization’s top achievements?
Bialo: Furniture Sharehouse celebrated three major Milestones in 2024 (our 18th year of operation):
- We surpassed 18,000 total clients furnished since inception
- We surpassed 100,000 total items of free furniture distributed
- The thrift shop value of all furniture distributed surpassed $6M
(We also) furnished 48 of 77 supportive housing apartments in one new affordable housing apartment building in the Sound Shore, and still counting, at 2-3 additional apartments per week. This incredible statistic is solid proof of the critical service provided by Furniture Sharehouse to Westchester residents in need.
How can local residents support your organization?
Bialo:
- Donate your gently-used furniture to us instead of those other guys! Other organizations that will pick up your furniture donations are selling it in their resale stores at prices that our clients can’t possibly afford. We will give your donated furniture free to those who need it most!
- Support us financially with a monetary donation to help cover our cost of warehouse rent and maintenance, furniture pick-ups and other operating expenses. Operationally, it costs us approximately $500 to furnish each family with beds, table and chairs, living room furniture, dressers and nightstands, lamps, mirror, rug, artwork and household/kitchen items – everything they need to fill their empty apartments and rebuild their lives.
- Go to our website to make a furniture donation request, and to make a monetary contribution to support our 2024 annual campaign to raise much-needed funds to continue to furnish the empty apartments of those in need. Thank you in advance.
What local Rye residents and area businesses have been the longest, steadiest supporters of your organization?
Bialo: We are fortunate to have been supported by Rye Presbyterian Church Women’s Association with grants from their Thrift Shop every year since 2009. We support the Thrift Shop with surplus items from our donations that we cannot use, and every year when they close for the summer, they donate suitable items from their end-of-year inventory.
Carpet Trends has supported us through the years with donations of surplus carpeting from their inventory and sponsorships to our fundraisers.
Finch & Co. has partnered with Furniture Sharehouse by steering furniture donations from its clients and facilitating the delivery of those items directly to us.
Rye Country Day School hosted a Furniture Drive in April 2024, in conjunction with Finch & Co., and has also contributed student artwork for our clients over the years.
Tell us about you:
How long have you been in your current role?
Bialo: I founded Furniture Sharehouse in 2006 and we opened our doors in 2007.
Is the role full time or part time? Paid or volunteer?
Bialo: I am a volunteer, and somehow manage to spend part of every day overseeing our operations. With the exception of a half-time Program Manager and our delivery independent contractor, we are all volunteers. We have a terrific board of directors and an incredibly dedicated group of volunteers who work at our warehouse keeping inventory organized, cleaned, and repaired, and serving as “personal shoppers” for our clients.
How would your friends and family describe you in one word?
Bialo: Hard-working
Where did you grow up?
Bialo: Houston, Texas, and moved with my family to the Chicago area for college, back to Texas for law school.
What is your favorite unimportant thing about you?
Bialo: I love playing mah jongg.
If the next five years is a chapter in your life, what is this chapter about?
Bialo: Balancing work and family, enjoying my grandkids.
What would you do if you were not afraid?
Bialo: Ride a roller coaster, pet cats, ask a major realty developer to donate us a big beautiful warehouse to expand our operations.
Where do you live in Rye and how many years have you lived in the City?
Bialo: I have lived in Larchmont for 35 years.
Thanks Kate!
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