Roosevelt Bouie teams up with volunteers to build 50 beds for Syracuse kids

Syracuse, N.Y. – A cacophony of power tools reverberated through the North Side Learning Center, where a small space had transformed into a temporary workshop on Saturday in early November.
About 30 volunteers were working toward a single mission: to build 50 beds for children on the North Side in one day.
The group included a mix of ages and backgrounds – not to mention levels of construction experience. But as the volunteers drilled, sawed, and hammered together, those differences mattered less.
Because they weren’t just building beds.
“There was community happening,” said Esther Zorn, president of the Eastwood Rotary, one of the organizations involved in the build.
The bed build was the work of three non-profits: the Bouie Foundation, the Eastwood Rotary Club, and the North Side Learning Center.
Eastwood Rotary contributed $3,000 to the build, according to Zorn. The Bouie Foundation supplied the tools and materials, according to Bouie, who declined to say how much the materials cost.
It all started a bit by chance: Zorn met Roosevelt Bouie, the former Syracuse University basketball player, at a Rotary Meeting.
Bouie had been building beds for close to a year after he was inspired by his work with a group called Sleep in Heavenly Peace. He made it an initiative, called 50 Winks, as part of his Bouie Foundation.
Once Zorn heard Bouie speak at the meeting she immediately knew Eastwood Rotary had to get involved and bring the bed build to Syracuse, Zorn said.
After Bouie enthusiastically agreed to set up shop for a day in Syracuse, Zorn found another local community partner in the Northside Learning Center.
She had known the center’s director Mark Cass for a little over a year. Cass eagerly provided the space and offered to rope in as many volunteers as possible.
Then Fatna Mohamed, a community navigator at the North Side Learning Center who emigrated to Syracuse from North Sudan in 2011, got on the case.
Mohamed, a former student at the center, said she found 32 families in two days who needed beds. That includes one for her daughter.
That led to the makeshift workshop at the North Side Learning Center.
Cass says students, like Mohamed, becoming community leaders often happens at the center, which helps refugees and immigrants integrate into the community.
“It’s always heartwarming, but it doesn’t surprise me when we see it,” Cass said.
Bouie, who was at the workshop earlier this month, said seeing all the volunteers come together brought a new dimension to his work.
He started 50 Winks with one bed at a time in Bouie’s hometown in Orleans County in Western New York.
“When we started, it was right in his driveway, in his garage, you know, one bed, one kid at a time, and as the need grew bigger and we found more and more kids in need,” said Jonathan Rosenfeld, an organizer with the Bouie Foundation who was at the November workshop.
Bouie said his interest stems from his passion for woodworking, a hobby he’s had since high school.
When he first got the idea, he called up Syracuse University’s School of Engineering to draft plans for a custom-designed loft bed with a built-in workspace underneath. It’s big enough to fit someone as tall as Bouie, who is 6 feet, 11 inches tall.
Bouie’s group also has partnered with the company BedGear to supply children who receive the bed frames with Twin XL mattresses, sheets, and a pillow, according to Rosenfeld.
Zorn says Eastwood Rotary is currently fundraising to donate comforters as well.
“I know people that are really excited,” said Mohamed.
The highlight of the work, according to Zorn, was the eagerness and growth displayed by the children from the North Side Learning Center who participated in the build.
“They eased in. They were welcomed. They were taught. Nobody criticized them. They were encouraged,” Zorn said.
In the end, the group didn’t make their goal of building 50 beds in a day, but they’ve already delivered a dozen beds to the community, according to Zorn.
Bouie says they could have built all the beds in one day, but the day was more about teaching the children who volunteered how to use the tools and engage them in the build, rather than finishing as many beds as possible.
The group assembled again the next weekend and surpassed their goal, finishing 50 loft beds and 12 bunk beds, Bouie said.
He added that the anticipated 50 beds will be delivered with mattresses over the next few weeks by the North Side Learning Center with support from the Bouie Foundation.