Oskaloosa Slumberland continues Holiday Tradition

Oskaloosa Slumberland delivered mattresses to some area residents in need over the holidays. (submitted photo)

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The holidays may be past, but the stories of kindness and a caring community continue to come to light.

One such story of caring comes from Slumberland Furniture in Oskaloosa, where an owner and its employees took to the airwaves to help spread some Christmas joy.

Corporate Slumberland has always had what they call ‘Home for the Holidays’ and it is a mattress giveaway, Steve Walters, local owner of Slumberland Furniture in Oskaloosa explains. The program is designed to provide those in need with a mattress during the month of December and into the first part of January.

Walters’ store is a franchise store and isn’t required to follow corporate policy with the giveaway, but has done so gladly every year of the 10 years they have been in Oskaloosa.

Walters and his staff used suggestions generated by radio advertising to find candidates for this year’s giveaway. This gave them the ability to find those in need beyond the Oskaloosa city limits, because, as Walters explained, he has many customers in those areas outside of Oskaloosa that help support his store as well.

I asked Walters if it is difficult to decide on who is most in need of a mattress. “No it’s not,” Walters said of the process. Experience and a knowledge of your community help in that decision making process.

This year, Slumberland in Oskaloosa stocked their delivery truck for deliveries in Albia, Rose Hill, University Park and Oskaloosa. In all, they helped a local veteran and couple who lost their home to a fire, they also helped a young boy, who had been sleeping on the floor, have a warm bed to crawl into every night, and some grandparents who took in their grandchildren in their time of need.

In past years, they loaded up the Slumberland truck with mattresses for delivery to the Bloomfield area, to a family where the father has lost his job, the wife has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, they have four kids and dirt floors.

Other years, the delivery van then headed for New Sharon, Grinnell, “we went just about every direction,” store manger Maisi Watts explained.

So when the surprised recipient of a mattress sees the delivery van arrive, it’s a secret how they were chosen. Walters says, “Nobody knows how it got there. We don’t divulge any names to anybody, we never have.”

The only thing Slumberland collects is a picture and a smile of the recipient posing with the delivery van. That helps to light up the holiday season.