Posts Tagged ‘Travis Goodson’

Local developer receives City of Heroes award // The Albany Herald

Albany Police Department Officer Travis Goodson, known for his national #hugacopchangetheworld campaign and for giving awards to people doing good work in the community, presented his second City of Heroes award to developer Pace Burt Jr. After coming across the website of Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a nonprofit based in the Midwest that builds bunk beds for children in need, Burt said he decided to bring the idea to Albany.

“(Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s) whole story was just about how children actually sleep on the floor and how getting a child up off the floor helps them with their dignity and their health and just overall well-being,” the developer said. “And you (look at) Albany with a 30-something, 40 percent poverty level that you obviously don’t need to look too far to realize you had that problem here.”

Worried about the price of assembling and delivering bunk beds, Burt said he turned to Robert Brooks, the CEO of Albany-based Brooks Furniture, for assistance.

“I told him what I wanted to do,” Burt said. “He called back and said, ‘I can get you a really nice bunk bed, mattress and everything, for $350.’ So I said, ‘I want 100 of them,’ and he was willing to set them up and deliver them for free, which is huge.”

Burt added that he funded the project for a year. He added that he reached out to several other organizations, and Girls Inc. and Boys & Girls Clubs of Albany expressed interest in helping with the project. He said he has since turned over most of the operations to Boys & Girls Clubs of Albany, which has renamed the program “Sweet Dreams.”

Read the full story here, from The Albany Herald.