Watch on DrTalks

How One Bed Can Change A Child’s Life: The Story Behind Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Discover how something as simple as a bed can improve a child’s sleep, emotional well-being, learning, and long-term health.
Understand why meaningful service not only changes the lives of others but also brings greater purpose, resilience, and fulfillment to our own lives.
Learn how small acts of kindness can grow into lasting community impact when people choose to act on opportunities to serve.

About the Expert

Julia Ward, MD

Dr. Julia Ward

Dr. Julia Ward is a compassionate and forward-thinking physician with over a decade of experience in functional medicine, known for her systems-based approach to healing chronic illness. She is the founder of Balanced Body Functional Medicine, where she helps patients uncover the deeper drivers of disease and restore health by addressing the body as an interconnected whole.
After earning her medical degree from the University of Southern California, Dr. Ward served in the U.S. Navy, practicing general, urgent, and emergency medicine both domestically and abroad. Her own personal struggle with unexplained fatigue led her to question the limitations of conventional medicine and ultimately guided her toward functional medicine.
While she initially focused on identifying root causes, Dr. Ward’s approach has continued to evolve. She now emphasizes the importance of how and when the body is treated—not just what is treated. Through her Balanced Body System Reset™ framework, she focuses on restoring nervous system balance, improving mitochondrial function, reducing inflammation, and addressing root causes in the right sequence to create lasting and meaningful healing.
Dr. Ward integrates advanced diagnostics, personalized care plans, and innovative therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen and ozone therapy, while also emphasizing foundational elements like nervous system regulation, lifestyle, and patient engagement. She believes that healing is not a one-size-fits-all process, but a guided journey that requires both strategy and active participation.
A lifelong learner, Dr. Ward continues to expand her expertise in areas such as precision genomics, brain health, and complex chronic illness. She is deeply committed to helping her patients not only feel better, but truly understand their bodies and take ownership of their health.
A devoted wife and mother of five, Dr. Ward brings both clinical expertise and personal insight to her work, with a mission to transform the way chronic illness is understood and treated.

More from Julia Ward, MD on DrTalks

Guest

Luke Mickelson

Luke Mickelson

Founder of Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Luke Mickelson is a professional leadership coach, motivational speaker, and founder of Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP), the world's largest bed-building charity. After discovering that children in his own community were sleeping on the floor, Luke left a successful corporate career to pursue a mission of ensuring that no child sleeps without a bed. What began in his garage has grown into an international nonprofit with hundreds of chapters and hundreds of thousands of volunteers building and delivering beds to children in need. Named a CNN Top 10 Hero, Luke continues to inspire communities around the world through leadership, service, and the belief that ordinary people can create extraordinary change.

More from Luke Mickelson on DrTalks

As you and I speak right now, over all our chapters nationwide, there are on average, give or take, 150,000 kids on our waiting list all the time. Wow.

And to make matters even worse, That's only covering 30% of the United States. We're still a relatively young organization, we only cover 30%, and there's 150,000 kids.

That goes to show you there are so many kids out there. Child bedlessness is a pandemic. However you want to call it, it's a panic. People have no idea even.

Wow. Welcome to the Functional Edge. I'm Dr. Julia Ward, and this is where science meets real-world strategies for living healthier, sharper and stronger.

From uncovering hidden environmental toxins to unlocking peak performance and mental clarity, we cover it all. Ready to take control of your health and thrive?

Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to the Functional Edge podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Julia Ward, medical director and founder of Balanced Body Function Medicine.

Today we're honored to welcome Luke Mikkelsen, founder Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a nonprofit organization with a simple but powerful mission, ensuring that no child sleeps on the floor.

What began as a small service project in Luke's garage has grown into an international movement with volunteers building and delivering beds to children in needs across hundreds of communities.

In this episode, Luke shares the inspiring story behind sleep in heavenly peace, the surprising impact that something as simple as a bed can have on a child's health and well-being, and the lessons he's learned about purpose, leadership, service and human connection along the way.

So stay tuned for an engaging conversation that promotes to inspire, challenge and remind us all of the profound difference one person can make. Thank you for being here, Luc.

Well, thanks for having me, Julia. This is an honor to be on. Thank you. Well, for those who may not be familiar with Sleep in Heavenly Peace, can you tell us how this organization began and what first opened your eyes to the problem of children sleeping on the floor?

Yeah, yeah, you bet. That was quite a story there. Yeah. You know, first of all, I just don't listen. I'm a farm kid from Idaho. Um, it was about as simple as they come.

you know? I grew up in a small town. A small three, 4,000 people was small, and I think the benefits from those living in the small-town like that, You don' realize until later on in life.

And it's just the sense of community that you develop, a support system, rely on each other type mentality. and you, know I, just always thought people thought that way.

because that's how I grew up. For the most part, we experienced that. I think you attract the people that you emanate. But I loved it. In my small town and learning and enjoying everybody else, knowing everything about everybody and everybody knowing about you is both a pro and a con.

When you have that, you know, build this camaraderie. You know you build the sense of needing to help other people. And I think that's a lot where I got my desire and joy for service.

I consider myself a pretty service oriented guy. Early on, I was raised by a single mom and when you're raised with a mom with five sisters and brothers and You know, on a partridge in a pear tree, you learn to go without, and you learned to stretch things out.

You learn how to solve things by yourself. And being a farm kid, get stuck out in the field, You got to figure things, out and rely on others. I enjoyed that.

But I really appreciate it now. But, um, you know, where this all started is in 2012, I was about 35 years old and I don't know. Everybody goes through, a certain period of time in their life when, they're just questioning things.

They question their, for me, it was like, that was a question of my faith. That was question in my, what is my purpose? Like my measure of success was always how much money you made, right?

That's six deaths, partly because I grew up in such a single parent home where you just didn't have a lot. My mom was always harping on us, go to college, get your education, and get a good job so you don't starve.

Not that we starved, but that was drilled into us. I always had that as a measure of success, which it is. Don't get me wrong. But I think for me anyways, when I hit this 35 age, I had three kids.

I was coaching football. Had a good career. Was serving in my church. On paper, checked all the boxes. It was great. Yeah. But success doesn't always equal fulfillment, you know, and it always always equals a purpose.

And I think I started realizing that. For me, I was looking at my kids, looking to me as a dad and as husband, am I doing things right? What really is important?

what is now my measure of success? All of these things, these questions that I had, they didn't have very good answers, or at least I didn' have any answers for some of them.

That's a tough spot to be in. You know, it's hard to not know. So anyways, you kind of, I was living in this fog, if you will, this wondering what, what's most important in life.

Well, This is when I, at the time I served in my church is what was called a young men's president. so I kind like a youth pastor in the South, although I'll never admit that as a pastor.

I'm not that qualified. But I enjoyed the youth and I enjoy working with them. And I was a, you know, like I said, I'm a football coach and love working.

With the use. So I had this youth group that was responsible for the activities of the boys, their spiritual growth and the activity arm was basically Boy Scouts.

Well, in this position. Every other week we'd sit with other leaders in the church, talking about what's going on in community, what are the things that we're helping families that were helping and how we can come together.

Well, one leader stood up in this particular meeting and she talked about a family that caught my ear. And it caught me mostly first anyways, because they lived in a part of my small town I didn't even know existed.

And I've been riding my bike around this town since I was five. I mean, come on. And, I remember going, wait a minute, where is this place? And then she talked about the things that the family needed.

She had paid a visit to them and saw that they needed help obviously with the brand and food. The mom was the local school bus driver and the dad suffered from some mental health issues, couldn't hold a job.

So financially they were struggling a little bit. And the kids didn't have any beds and they needed, you know, some clothing and whatnot. And I said, whoa, wait a minute.

I like stopped the meeting. Did you just say the kid's don't want to have many beds? Like, what do you mean? They got mattresses, right? And she looked at me and she says, no, they just have a blanket on the floor.

And that hit me, I don't know why it hit so hard. I'd like to think it'd hit everybody else too, but I just was like, whoa, wait a minute, i thought about my own kids, you know, them sleeping on the floor day in and day out.

i love my bed, can't imagine what that would be like. And then the thought came to me. Here's a great opportunity for my Boy Scouts to get an Xbox controller out of their hands and let's put a drill in it.

Teach these boys something, you know? And listen, I'm not a woodworker guy. I'd probably disgrace the name of a Woodworker if you called me one, but I could figure things out.

It wasn't a stranger to tools and never been built furniture, But I was excited at the opportunity to build this bed for what a great cause, you know, this family that was in need.

And so I told the boys about it and they got excited. I really was a little nervous, that if we didn't have a screen or a computer or game or something like that, they wouldn't be that excited, but no, They were excited and so they came over to my house for a couple of three nights that week.

I measured out my daughter's bunk bed, kind of figured out an easy design because none of us had built it before. And so we built this bunkbed. It was a great experience.

I wanted these boys to learn the joy of service. All the stuff that comes from serving others, right? And I also wanted them to appreciate the things they have, like a bed for crying out loud.

Yeah. Well, the word kind of got out in the community a little bit, right? You know, their parents, boy's parents found out and their friends. Anyways, The Night Came to Deliver is Saturday night and like 30 people showed up to my house to deliver this bed to this family.

And I was like, listen, we can't send an army over to his two bedroom apartment. It's not a good scene. And so me and a bunch of leaders and whatnot, we stayed back.

I had to clean my garage anyways. It was the beginning of December, not exactly a warm time to have your garage open up. The boys went and delivered this bed.

Well, the next day at church, they just talked about how amazing it was, how the kids responded and the parents were so grateful. And the Boy Scouts got to see the conditions that these kids were sleeping in.

It was just a win all the way around. I was excited as a leader. There's only one loss and that was me being jealous, not going on the delivery. But that's fine.

That's what we do as leaders. Well, it was done. We had solved child bedlessness. The next week came around and I could just feel, Julie, I can feel myself dropping back down into this fog.

And it's almost worse now because here I just experienced this amazing event. I got this spark, this fire lit in me. And it was over. And now I'm diving back down to this pit.

Well, I was sitting on the couch the next week with my kids. We were watching Big Bang Theory. It was like our favorite program at the time. Yeah. Well, commercial come on.

And it was some Xbox game, something or other. I can't even remember. But being it's the first part of December, every parent knows what happens next, right?

You know what's coming, and sure enough, without fail, hey, dad, can we get another Xbox? Yeah, you know, it just hit me. Here I am trying to figure out what is life about?

Am I being a good dad? What am I supposed to do? Yeah. What is my measure of success? I just built a bed for a kid that didn't have any. My kids have a bad, they should appreciate that.

Not another Xbox. They don't need that, but just this noise. Then I got a quick thought. There's this tiny little moment where I thought, you know what, am missing out on an opportunity to teach my kids the same thing I taught the Boy Scouts.

Yeah. You know, and right then, I don't know. My dad instincts kicked in. I just stood up and walked to the garage. And my, my kids, didn't say a word.

Right. Just got up on the walk. The kids said, where are you going? I said I'm going to build another bunk, but I got leftover wood. We're going build an other bed and you're gonna come and help me.

And you know what? It was great. I got pictures of my daughter, seven years old, out in her little pink tutu, drilling away, in his Boise State jersey.

We just had a lot of fun building this bed. Because I wanted them to have the same experience, right? What does it feel like giving back? When you stop thinking about yourself and you think about other people, I truly believe that's where true joy comes from.

You know, our problems, they just don't go away. Of course not, right? But when you serve, it puts you in this perspective or the state of mind where you can now maybe look at your problems in a different light, in different perspective.

And quite frankly, most of the time, they shrink. They're not near as big and as ugly as what they seem. And that's what service does for people. I want my kids to learn that.

Plus, I wanted them to appreciate the things they have, like a bed for crying out loud. Well the funny thing, the ironic thing was we built the bed. It was awesome.

Now what do you do with it? I had no idea. I didn't know child bedlessness, although not a real word, is actually a problem. Okay. So neither. Yeah. Well, so what do you do with the bed that you just built with your kids?

You know? So it was recommended to me, why don't you throw it on buy, sell, trade, you know, free bed. And I was like, I didn't really know what that was back then.

I wasn't a huge Facebook guy, but I do a free bet on the internet. Probably not the greatest idea, right? Well I don' t have any other choice. And so I threw it on, I through it Facebook.

Well, two things happened that just shocked me. The first thing was. there was so many people that commented on this post that I made, people I didn't even know who they were.

I had no idea who the were, right? And then the second thing that was shocking is all of them knew kids that were sleeping on the floor. And I was like, I mean, only knew one, or one family anyways.

So it was just shocking to me. It blew me away. You know, it's kind of upsetting, to be honest with you. Then I got thinking, you know hey, I wanted this bed to go to a really special need.

I mean, they're all special, but, you know, one that I felt, my family put together and built for it. Then I got a call and I gotta call from a friend of mine.

She lived about 30 minutes away in the town and she worked in a social services sector. And she told me, well, she called me. At first she said, Luke, have you delivered that bed yet?

I said no, no. Why? She says, let me tell you about Haley. So Haley's a six year old girl that's never slept on a bed before. Never slept. She just slept in the backseat of her mom's car.

They were homeless and my friend helped them get a house. Right. And so I instantly, just for whatever reason, I said, this is it. This is the one I want us to deliver this bed to.

So we loaded this bit up and headed out. Well, I've experienced, you know, homelessness before transitioning homelessness, poverty. I helped out and served in those areas before, but I have never walked into this situation looking at it through the eyes of a six year old.

You know, when you do that and you walk into a house that literally has nothing in it, there's a can of soup that was on a hot plate. That was it. And here's this little Haley, this six-year-old, you know there is no couch or TV to watch cartoons in the morning like I did when I was six.

You there was no kitchen table and chair to eat cereal on like when did I when was 6. There's nothing. This little girl was so happy. It just shocked me.

She was happy, she had a And she was showing us this house. She didn't know why we were there. It was kind of odd. We were two strangers. I wanted to teach her.

Hey, first of all, stranger danger. You got to remember that one. But then I said, hey, Haley, show me where your bedroom's at, right? And so she just pulled us back in her bedroom.

So excited. And you can imagine what this looked like, there was holes in the carpet and tears in You know, the closet door was missing and there's used toys.

It was dimly lit. I mean, I can paint this picture for you, but of the worst things that I saw was in the corner was a pile of clothes. And that's where Haley slept.

She slept on her school clothes, she'd come home from school, literally put her PJs on, sleep on our schoolclothes. Shirt for a pillow and pants for blanket, right?

And then she put those same clothes on in morning and go to school. I was not prepared for that. Yeah. I don't know what I prepared. For I didn't think that far ahead, I guess.

And, and here was Haley just, you know, sleeping on in these conditions. and I thought of my kids. In fact, got, upset, almost mad. Like this is going on my own hometown.

No way. Right. But then I got pretty excited because we had brought her her bed and, you know, we started bringing these, the pieces in and putting it together.

And I kind of watched her to see how her reaction would be. Once she realized it was a bed. Oh my gosh. It was Christmas morning. I mean, she just erupted.

You know? She came over and hooked me and hug my friend. These two strange dudes in her room making, and then Julia, She did something I'd never forget.

She went over to this bunk bed, wrapped her arms around it. hugged it and then kissed it like it was a sibling. That's so cute. I'd like to think I'm a big strong farm kid from Idaho, but I wasn't there for a minute.

Then if that wasn' enough just to wreck you, you look up and here's mom, six years of tears running down the single mom's, and I was raised by a single mum too, so trust me, I knew what each one of those tears meant.

I'd seen it before. You know, the struggle and the pain and, and you know frustration and guilt and all of this just because she couldn't provide for her daughter.

Something as simple as a bed. I mean, my gosh. And that's when I learned. That's what I knew. It just dawns on me, I guess. This is way more than just a bed.

Way more just to bed, there was a fire lit in my heart instantly. I mean, I'm a farm kid from Idaho. And I love hunting and fishing and, you know, sports outside and college football on Saturdays.

So I loved all these things. That loved them for 35 years. and when I saw that mom and I say, Hey, these reaction. Just like that. None of it mattered anymore.

I thought, you know, me and my kids spent a couple hours a night that week building that bed to solve that problem. Yeah. That's well worth my time. On the way home, me and my buddy really didn't say much to each other until we got home and I finally looked over at him and just holding back the tears and anger at the same time.

It was a weird feeling. And I just said, you know what? Your kid is going to sleep on the floor in my town if I have anything to do with it. We just started building beds.

Wow. That's awesome. That is so great. Have you heard stories from the parents afterwards about improved, you know, the kids improved socially or doing better in school or just having more success just because they're getting that good night's sleep?

Absolutely. You know we've done pre and post surveys, with applicants that we got for the past seven or eight years and it's astonishing. Almost every case, well I'd say arguably every shows an improvement in grades, in behavior.

Listen, just for 60 seconds, stop what you're doing and think for a minute. What would it be like being, you know, like Haley, six years old and not having a bed?

You know these kids, when they wake up, they're not, I mean they didn't sleep well. or sleeping on their clothes for crying out loud, they're not ready to learn.

So now they go thrust into school expecting to be on the same learning level as these other kids, which they are not. They're grade sufferer. When grades suffer they feel like a failure.

Oftentimes they don't make the greatest friends. Right? They can't have sleepovers for sure. Friends can come to their house. Don't want that. They go to their friend's house.

They're going to little Johnny's House. And not only does little Johnnie have a bed, he's got throw pillows. I mean, what message do these kids get when they see that, right?

Julia, when you and I have had a bad day, the boss is rough on us, or we have an argument with our spouse, Or worse yet, we get the flu. Tell me, What is the one place on the planet that we can't wait to crawl into?

It's our bed. I speak all over the country and I sleep in a lot of really comfortably nice hotel rooms and beds. There's not one that I would rather sleep than my own.

And trust me, it doesn't have anything to do with comfort. It's my sanctuary, right? It is my safe place. I had a friend of mine tell me, he says, you know, Luke, it's interesting you call it SHP because when me and my sister, they grew up in kind of a hard home, when it got rough, his sister said, hey, can we go to our secret hiding place?

They called it their SHB and it was their bed. How crazy is that? And these kids serve, They don't have that. They didn't get that sanctuary. That's when I'm, when, I say it's way more than a bed and it is not a shock to see these kids improve and flourish when they have something as simple as bed.

And it more that just a good night's sleep. It really is, you know, as a chapter president. He got signed on this many years ago. He was actually a juvenile detention guard.

And, you know, in these facilities, right. They, these kids, they have like group sessions. I've never attended one, but I assume what, You know they get 20 kids or so and they sit down in a group and the, and.

Well, this chapter president one time asked him, says, I was just curious. he says how many of you here grew up without a bed? It was 85%. Now, if that doesn't tell you a little bit, I'm not saying that's the whole reason, but it's certainly a bit of reason why these kids may have ended up in this situation.

85%. That's pretty high. That is high, that is amazing. These kids, they struggle. They struggle and something is mundane to you and I as a bed. It's crazy.

Yeah. So you've grown this from like a garage project into a national movement. What leadership lessons have you learned along the way? Lots. I don't know.

Probably the most important leadership lesson I'd ever learn and would pass on is, listen, find good people. Find people that have the same heart that you do, right, that care.

I think passion outweighs skill. in a lot of ways, not every way. I'm just really lucky, sleeping on the peace. If it was just up to me, it probably wouldn't have gotten very far.

We have amazing people that have jumped on board and a nonprofit, very difficult to grow anything because you can't tam. At least not at first. These people show up because they're great people.

They have huge hearts. are put to the test. When you think about it, when you start an organization like Building Beds for Kids, we have a bed build manager.

Can you tell me where that resume comes from? I mean, no job description for most of these jobs. And I learned, listen, if there's one thing I do good, I think I put round pegs and round holes pretty good.

But that might be the extent of it. All of these people have eels that they've honed in and expertise that, they brought to Sleep in Heavenly Peace. And that is why we've grown to now over 470 trained chapter presidents.

We're in four countries. The end of this year, we will have built our 500,000th bed. Wow. That's amazing. What an accomplishment. Congratulations. A lot of amazing people.

We have hundreds of thousands of volunteers that help every year. Our goal this year is over 100,000 beds built. Here's a sad reality. This is why I'm so grateful you're having me on your podcast.

Child bedlessness. You know, it's not even a real word. The ironic thing is, but it is a problem. As you and I speak right now, over all our chapters, nationwide, there are on average, give or take, 150,000 kids on our waiting list, all the time.

And to make matters even worse, that's only covering 30% of the United States. We're still a relatively young organization, we only cover 30%, and there's 150,000 kids.

That goes to show you there are so many kids out there. Childbedlessness is a pandemic, however you want to call it. It's a pandemic. people have no idea even.

Wow. And that makes such a major impact on their future going forward. You know, if you're chronically deprived of sleep and you are not doing well in school, I mean, it's going to have lifelong impact.

Their study's been done on, you know, the development of some autism and OCD issues and behavioral issues, social issues. Social anxiety issues because kids just don't sleep very well.

Their brain doesn't develop as well as it could anyways, right? And that's just the physical part of things. I mean, think of the emotional and the mental.

These kids can't have sleepovers. At least they don' want to have a sleepover. Sure. You know, it's interesting when we deliver beds to kids, I tell my chapter presence, listen, leave two messages with these kids.

Number one, the first message is little Johnny, this is your bed. This is nobody else's. It's yours. Most of the time these. Kids, they don't have a whole lot of possessions.

Right. They don't have a whole lot of, you know, ownership of anything. And so to know that this is their bed, it's not their parents, is not the brother and sisters.

It's theirs. That means a lot to them. The second thing is I said, Hey, look around. You see these strangers in your room that brought you and put this bed together for you.

You don't even know who they are. They love you. And you need to know there's people in your community that love and care for you, you know, that's important to these kids, especially when, they see what other kids potentially have.

We're humans, we always equate the worst conditions, right? And kids are the same. Just to that there are people out there that care. That's huge for them.

Yeah. Do you think there is a connection between serving others and our own mental, emotional, and even physical well-being? Oh, 100%. Listen, if you want true joy, I share a lot about this.

In fact, when I call my tiny moment tour, speaking tours, because I really think true Joy comes from service. And like I mentioned before, cause when you serve.

You know, listen, we all serve because we want to help people. No question. But if you think you don't get something out of it, you totally do. And you should.

It's not selfish. True joy comes from service. Why? Because you feel a fulfilling feeling, right? That fulfilling, feeling that comes to us, it puts us in a mindset, a perspective where we can handle problems of our own.

You know, if I can share a story with you, I call my Hank story. It's kind of funny because it's the first time I ever did a real public build, right?

So we build our beds from raw lumber. We bring the wood, we bring wood usually from Lowe's, We put the tools in kind-of a train, like an assembly line.

And we take raw lumbar from the beginning and the end, you have pieces of beds that'll go together when we deliver it to the home. And we have the community build them.

Some people have never touched a drill before in their life. They're out there. We teach them how to do it. It's a super fun activity. Necessarily an easy activity, right?

It is physically challenging. And so when I did this public build, I had a guy walk in. This is my Hank story. Hank was like 600 years old. I mean, this guy was an old guy.

I was slightly worried he was not going to make it through the build, but he had that grandpa smile. He just came in and you just loved him instantly.

And he came up to me and he says, you're the guy, huh? And I said, sure, why not? He says where do you need me? I say, well, let me ask you a question.

What did you do for a living? And I said, okay, I know exactly where to put you. I'm going to to you at the cut station, right? If there's one part of our process that we can't screw up, it's cutting the wood.

The bad thing about the CutStations at very beginning, which is the furthest away from the heat, furthest away form the stove or the solo stove that brand our beds with, you're kind of all by yourself too, Right?

You're not in the middle of things. You are at a very begining. So I put him on this and he caught on right away. Well, when you're the only guy in a sea of 80 volunteers that knows how to do anything, you get pulled away quite a bit.

And so four hours go by, Julia, and I totally had forgotten about Hank. I mean, I was answering questions and talking to a bunch of people and all of a sudden it dawns on me, the build's almost over.

Is Hank alive? I don't know. I ran back to the cut station and there he was, just covered in sawdust, head to toe. His clothes were as white as his hair.

He looked up at me and I said, Hank, I'm sorry, like I totally forgot about you. And he's like, listen, Luke. I've volunteered my whole life at events and have never shown up to an event and in five minutes was put on an assignment.

It was so critical. People were counting on me to get this woodcut. And I was like, Hank, I am so sorry. I should have come. And he like held up his hand, like stop.

You know, he held the hand. He said, no, thank you. and I said I remember thinking, Thank you, what's wrong with you? And then I learned, and he taught me a very valuable lesson, one that I needed to learn.

All you nonprofit leaders out there, listen, this is a gold nugget. This is gold-nugget lesson. Hank taught that the happiest volunteer is the sweatiest and the dustiest.

Because when you volunteer your time, Right. Number one, you want it to be meaningful. Right? I mean, it's Saturday morning. You got other things you could go do.

People don't want to show up and just push a button or push your broom around. They want feel like their efforts meant something and it was meaningful And a lot of times that's because it's hard.

We like to do hard, I mean, we necessarily don't like do do things, but we like the feeling that has when we get done with hard things. I spent most of my time in the early days trying to make this bed building project as simple and easy for my volunteers as I possibly could.

And all I was doing was robbing them of the opportunity to feel fulfilled from doing hard work and feeling the joys from giving it their all. We're not slave drivers, but I will tell you it's not easy work, it is not light work.

The next day we have what's called a post-body build because you fill it. But with that, most of our volunteers will tell us that a bed build is one of the greatest and most fulfilling volunteer service opportunities they've ever done.

Because it's not easy. It's very impactful. And you get a sense of fulfillment that you otherwise don't get at other opportunities, right? So that's what brings people to SHP.

That's, what bring people and continues to have SHB grow is because we look at our volunteer experience almost. probably pretty close to equally important as the actual mission that we serve.

Because without volunteers, you're not going to have a mission very long. Yeah. Well, looking ahead, what is your vision for Sleep in Heavenly Peace? And what would success look like 10 years from now?

Oh, you know, we're growing so fast, still growing, right? And those early days we spent a lot of time trying to figure out, just what we are supposed to do as a nonprofit.

I mean, I probably had no business starting a non-profit. We definitely built this plane as we flew it. That's for sure. But you know, we are very focused board.

I'm no longer the executive director. In fact, my best friend now who helped me start this, he's executive. He has a very good vision and strategic plan.

You know our goal is to cover a hundred percent of the United States. We've got a long ways to go. And then once we hit that, which I think we're going to hit here in the next five or six years.

Once we get that man, Michael. You know, when my kids are all gone and me and my wife can travel, I want to hit as many countries as we can. Cause if that problem happens here, you know it's happening everywhere else, right?

You don't sleep in heavenly peace. I'll give you a statistic is greater than 3% of the total population of any given town. So, you know, your listeners, if you're in a town of a hundred thousand people, there were 3000 kids sleeping on the floor.

You don't even know it, right? And they're everywhere. And the sad reality is these kids, they are in these situations, not because of their choices, it's because the choices are the actions of others or just the situation oftentimes.

And the sad reality is they can't help themselves, right? Unlike adults that might need some help and possibly can help them out, these kids can. They can build or buy or go get their own bed.

It needs to be solved by someone in their community. And that's why we have 470-plus chapters, presidents that we've trained. There's amazing people out there that want to give back.

Here's an opportunity to not just give, but to help children. That don't have beds. They don t have a good night's sleep, right? I knew a long time ago, Julia, the child bedlessness is not going to be solved by some farm kid from Idaho.

That's for sure. It's going be sold by people in the communities that these kids live in. So I needed to provide a platform that's easy to enter, easy, to make happen as simple and transparent as it possibly can be.

You know, most of our chapter presidents have never ran a business or certainly never run a nonprofit. But they're very successful because we make it as simple and as easy as possible.

It just needs a little effort and a whole lot of heart. That's awesome. Finally, if every listener could walk away with one lesson from your journey, what would you want it to be?

And there's a lot. My first and foremost, I want to raise awareness about child-bedlessness. That's what I hope you take away from today is just know that it is real.

And if you haven't heard about it, trust me, the person you're talking to tomorrow or today or right now hasn't hurt about either. So let them know. Let them that this is a problem and that there is solution out there.

And maybe on a personal from Luke Mickelson message, right? Listen, I'm a farmer from Idaho. And I say that for a reason. Anybody, anybody can make a difference in the world that they live in.

You just have to follow your tiny moments. We all want to make changes. we all wanna be different. And that's good. You need to have that. you need have a desire to change, but it's the second step.

That's far too often forgot about, or certainly not exercise. And, that is the desire, to act on those changes. I mean, we read self-help books, We dream about being different.

We want to be better. we want, do all this stuff. and great, you have to, have the, desire. But you also have, the have desire act, and that the hardest part.

So, what's, best way to do that? You got to practice it. I mean, if you want to get good at free throws, we got to go practice a bunch of free-throws, right?

So why don't we practice acting on our good intentions? Acting on. Tiny moments. That's what my tiny moment tour is about is teaching people how to act.

It doesn't have to be a big act, Right? We think we have. Change the world. And if we didn't, Oh, We're no good. Oh, listen, acting on your tiny moments.

You might not change the world, right? But I promise you, you're going to change someone's world. And that someone might just be you and it might be a little change, but you do that change a hundred times.

Then you start understanding what I'm talking about. You'll start seeing the bigger picture of service and what that provides and the state of mind that puts you in.

And I truly believe when you do that and you act on your tiny moments, like me, I am living proof. that you will find a passion for something, and that passion will turn into purpose.

And there's nothing better in life than having a purpose, there is nothing worse in live than not having one. That's really what I hope people take away, aside from sharing childbedlessness, but taking away that, you can make a difference.

Don't try to eat the whole cow, right? Take little bites, practice acting on tiny moments. Go mow your neighbor's lawn. Bring a loaf of bread to someone that you know that could need it.

Just drop it off. Do a small act every day and you'll find that transformation start happening within your own life. That's awesome. And finally, one last question.

What gives you hope today? Oh, man. You know, I look in the eyes and the actions of all our chapter presidents. These people, Juliet, they're amazing.

I just know our Chapter Presidents because I deal with them all the time. They don't get paid to do this. And it's not a small task. You know, we have chapter presence to build thousands of beds a year, thousands.

I mean, think about it. That's like five beds every other day. It's crazy what these people do, and it is because they have such big hearts. And I strive to be like that every day and look at what this people are doing, it brings me such hope for us as humanity, us, as a country.

You know, us as trying to get along, you know what my motto, personal motto is, and it's the name of my business. It's humans helping humans. Cause that's what we are.

When you break it down. I don't care about religion or politics or race or ethnicity or any of that, economics. We're just humans, helping you. That's all we.

You got one turnaround, this blue dot, why not take an opportunity to help someone else out? Cause it only going to. Yeah, absolutely. Well, if someone wants to get more information about your organization or even how to start a chapter, how would they do that?

Yes. Go to shpbeds.org. What's going to happen is that's a website. It's not a national website, it's actually the website of your local chapter. We've done that on purpose is we want you to know what's.

Going on in your own hometown. How many kids are sleeping on the floor? How may applications are on their waiting list? how many beds they've built? What activities are going on that you could be a part of?

You can actually go and deliver beds, which is the most amazing thing you can build beds. Which is a different amazing. 90% greater than 90 percent of your dollar that you donate stays in that chapter, right?

You can be in Florida and donate to your sister's chapter in Maine. I don't know. Or this is something that really strikes a chord in your heartstrings and there's not a chapter close by to volunteer.

You can start a chapter. We have a very robust training program that we put on 50, 60 chapters a year and we don't lose very little. Do we actually lose mostly because chapter presence move.

we have very successful rate of success when it comes to chapters. And last but not least, you know, if you, know of a child that's sleeping on the floor, it doesn't have to be yours.

You know you go to our website, shpbeds.org, click on apply for a bed. And fill out an application for yourself, for your neighbor, or your sister that lives in Maine, right?

Based on the zip code, if a chapter president has accepted that zipcode as a deliverable area, which we only cover 30% right now, we're getting better, but…

They will get that application and it's not a first come first serve. It's based on need, right? There's some needs out there, Julia. I mean, one example, we had a brother and sister, six and seven years old.

Parents were out of the picture. Grandparents lived across the country. They went into foster care. A family took them in, but they only had one bed. And I got a call from the judge that says, listen, these kids are going to be split up in 24 hours if we don't get a bed to this family.

The only people they know in their lives is each other and they're about to be split up because of a bed? My gosh, we had a bedroom 12 hours later. That's the problems that we solve and anybody can be a part of it.

Okay, that's awesome. Thank you so much for being on. This is probably my favorite episode so far. Wow, thank you. Hey, listen, you have a podcast. I know you make a million dollars doing this, right?

I have a podcast too. It's negative dollars, by the way, everybody. To take the time that you have, the dollars you put in to give a platform for someone as simple as myself to share.

I mean, that means a lot. So thank you for putting the efforts into having a pod cast and thank for having me on. This is how we get better as a humanity, as race, people that just want to help other people.

Hats off to you and good luck with the rest of your podcast career. Awesome. Thank you so much. And everyone, thank you for joining me on the functional edge.

I hope today's episode gave you fresh insights and practical tools to level up your life. If you found value in what you heard, don't forget to click subscribe, share the podcast with someone who needs it and leave a review.

It's the best way to support our mission and bring powerful health solutions to more people. So for more resources, updates and behind the scenes content, visit drjuliaward.com.

Until next time, stay strong, Thank you for joining me on the Functional Edge. I hope today's episode gave you fresh insights and practical tools to level up your life.

If you found value in what you heard, don't forget to hit subscribe, share the podcast with someone who needs it, and leave a review. It's the best way to support our mission of bringing powerful health solutions to more people.

For more resources, updates, and behind-the-scenes content, visit drjuliaward.com. Until next time, stay strong, Stay healthy, And keep living on the functional edge.