In Canton, Georgia, a retired healthcare executive and his wife spent part of a recent Saturday assembling a wooden bed frame on the floor of a family's living room, then filling it with a new mattress, sheets, pillows, blankets, and a comforter — all so a child who had been sharing a mattress with siblings or parents could finally sleep alone. Dan and Nancy Kohl started the Cherokee County chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace, the national nonprofit whose mission is summed up in four words: no kid sleeps on the floor.
From Retirement to a New Mission
Until the Kohls applied to start it, Cherokee County had no Sleep in Heavenly Peace chapter at all, according to CBS News Atlanta. Dan Kohl previously served as CEO of private-equity-backed healthcare companies, and after he and Nancy retired, the pair began looking for ways to give back, the outlet reports. They eventually landed on Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a nonprofit founded in 2012 by Luke Mickelson in Kimberly, Idaho, after he found local children sleeping on the floor and built the charity's first bed himself, in his garage, according to Wikipedia.
Cherokee County has roughly 275,000 residents, and using the national nonprofit's own estimate that about 3% of children lack a bed, that works out to around 8,000 children locally who may be sleeping without one, per the CBS News Atlanta report. Dan Kohl told the station that even if the estimate overstated the problem by 75%, that would still leave 2,000 children without a bed in the county — a number he and Nancy felt was too large to ignore.
Recruiting a Community to Build
To get the chapter off the ground, the Kohls recruited community organizations, friends, neighbors, civic groups, nonprofits, and families, the station's report notes. Among the volunteers were members of the Young Men's Service League, which includes mothers and sons who volunteer together. Two of them, Kirby and Charlie, worked at the bed build; Charlie said he could help children who lack something most people have, while Kirby said giving back and spending time volunteering together were central to the effort.
The Kohls' own grandchildren pitched in too, helping brand the wooden beds and make deliveries, according to the same account. Their daughter helps vet the families who apply. Nancy Kohl said sleeping is important for everyone — a point underscored by what social workers have told the couple: some children fall asleep at their desks in school simply because they don't get enough rest at home.
Why Rest Matters So Much
That classroom exhaustion lines up with what public health researchers have found nationally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has linked insufficient sleep among children and adolescents to higher risks of obesity, mental health problems, behavioral issues, and lower academic performance, according to the CDC. Separate CDC data found that 35% of U.S. children aged 4 months to 14 years experienced short sleep duration on an average day or weeknight during 2020-2021.
Cherokee County is generally seen as a prosperous suburban stretch of Metro Atlanta, but need isn't evenly spread across it. Canton, the county seat, has a poverty rate of nearly 13% as of 2026, according to World Population Review, notably higher than the county's broader average — a gap that helps explain where bedlessness concentrates even in an otherwise well-off area.
The First Family to Get Beds
Sara and her sons Phoenix and Maddox were the first family to receive beds from the new Cherokee County chapter, per the CBS News Atlanta report. Sara has health issues that limit her mobility, and buying two new beds, mattresses, and bedding on her own was simply out of reach financially. She said having several people share one bed makes deep sleep nearly impossible, especially with small children involved.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace stepped in with two beds, complete with mattresses and bedding, for Sara's family. She said she felt relief knowing her children finally had a safe, comfortable place to sleep. Dan Kohl said the goal is for a child to be able to crawl into a brand-new bed and fall asleep immediately after volunteers finish the delivery and assembly inside the home.
A National Network Behind the Local Build
The Cherokee County chapter is tapping into an organization that has scaled dramatically. Sleep in Heavenly Peace delivered its 300,000th bed in August 2025 and had expanded to more than 400 chapters across 47 states and four countries by early 2026, according to the Charity Charge Show. The nonprofit funds much of its bed-building through turnkey corporate team-building events, in which sponsors like Lowe's purchase raw materials and supply employee volunteers, sidestepping the need for traditional galas or long fundraising campaigns.
The national group also runs an annual weeklong push called Bunks Across America, which mobilized 17,761 volunteers to build beds across North America in September 2026. This year, the Young Men's Service League adopted Sleep in Heavenly Peace as a national 9/11 Day of Service partner, helping build more than 10,000 beds through mother-and-son volunteer teams. Locally, Sleep in Heavenly Peace works with groups across Cherokee County to identify families in need and recruit the volunteers who deliver and assemble beds inside the homes themselves.
Hoodline has also tracked the charity's reach beyond Cherokee County — Sleep in Heavenly Peace was among the beneficiaries of proceeds from Pullen Park holiday train tickets, and a charity concert recently benefited the Clark County chapter alongside disaster relief efforts. For the Kohls, though, the work remains hyper-local: one bed, one family, one child who no longer has to sleep on the floor.
