More than 6,500 volunteers from Charlotte businesses are turning the Charlotte Convention Center into a nonstop workshop today, all to get kids off the floor and into real beds. The Lowe's-backed event with nonprofit Sleep in Heavenly Peace kicks off at noon Wednesday, April 15, and runs through noon Thursday, April 16, with organizers aiming to assemble as many as 10,000 beds. Teams from local employers will rotate through shifts to handcraft frames and match them with mattresses, pillows and bedding for quick delivery into the community.
As reported by WSOC, volunteers from Charlotte companies including Bank of America, Atrium Health, the Charlotte Hornets and Tepper Sports will cycle through five shifts, with the first group starting at 11 a.m. The outlet notes that organizers expect more than 6,500 volunteers overall and have timed staging and shipping so finished bed sets can move out the door quickly.
How the 24-hour build works
In a company release, Lowe's said the marathon is staged at the Charlotte Convention Center and is designed to produce up to 10,000 beds over the two-day push on April 15-16. The release also outlines a national bedding drive running April 2-24 to collect mattresses, sheets and pillows that will be paired with the completed frames for shipment.
Why it matters
According to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, roughly 140,118 children in the United States are currently waiting for beds, a figure organizers use when planning large build events. The charity's financial reports and annual summaries show deliveries have surged in recent years, pushing its all-time totals into the hundreds of thousands and making large volunteer-driven marathons one of the fastest ways to scale help.
Local deliveries and partners
Organizers tell WSOC that frames, mattresses, pillows and bedding from this effort will be donated to children in 110 communities across 36 states, with some shipments earmarked specifically for families in the Charlotte area. Volunteers will not only build the beds; many will also join neighborhood delivery teams to set them up inside recipients' homes.
This push follows a record 24-hour effort in May 2025, when Lowe's and Sleep in Heavenly Peace brought together about 5,500 volunteers to build 5,000 beds, a model organizers say showed that an assembly-line approach can move huge numbers of finished bed sets very quickly. Today's event tests whether that scale can be pushed even higher with more donated bedding and tighter staging.
Anyone who wants to volunteer, donate bedding or track local deliveries can find sign-up and donation information at Sleep in Heavenly Peace and on the organizer pages. Local partners say the mission is straightforward: get beds where they are needed and help as many kids as possible sleep better tonight.
