East Texans gather to build 100 beds for foster children

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - Over 300 community members and their families gathered Wednesday evening to build beds for local and overseas foster children.

It’s all for the Grace EmBEDded project which is a ministry of the nonprofit, Pure Religion. We spoke to the president, Tony Black about the goal.

“This is a great way to start the Thanksgiving season, to just come out and do something for someone else, to be able to just kind of create a soft landing place for them and they can stay with grandma or grandpa, somebody like that and the bed provides that resource so that they can stay close to home instead of having to go into foster care in the first place. " said Black.

There were different stations for building the headboards, assembling the slats, and loading the finished product onto the trailer.

Local software company, The Genesis Group participated in the project as a part of their ‘Genesis Gives Back’ program.

President of the Genesis Group, Jim Nipp says, “With our time, with our talent, our people, with our money, we plug into Grace Embedded and we have a lot of volunteers here tonight.”

Genesis worker, Christi McDowell came to the bed build for the first time this year. She says, “I brought the family and we’re just having a good time and they understand that you know there’s kids in need and it also helps put things in perspective with how to be thankful this time of year.”

And second year volunteer, Rick Featherston says it was important for him to continue the local mission.

“It’s a good thing to do so we can give thanks to the Lord for Him taking care of those kids and using us to take care of those kids. We’re thankful for that.” said Featherston.

In just three hours, they were able to make 100 beds for children who may be at risk of foster care.

This is the eighth year Pure Religion has put on the bed build event. To date, they have provided over 800 beds to foster children in Smith County and surrounding areas.