Life & Work with Amy Cox of Grandview

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Cox.

Hi Amy, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Flourish started as My Father’s House as a ministry of Resurrection – A United Methodist Church. For 10 years, this organization took its form under the care of the church. In late 2019, Flourish reorganized as a 501c3 non-profit agency in the community, opening up to greater opportunities to partner with a wide array of community organizations, volunteers, and churches.

Flourish now serves 1,500 families annually in a 39,000 square foot showroom and warehouse space in Grandview. We partner with more than 80 social service agencies who refer the individuals they serve that are living without furniture and home essentials to us. Our agencies serve kids aging out of foster care, domestic violence survivors, veterans, immigrants and refugees, individuals that have experienced natural disasters or eviction, those re-entering the community from incarceration, young women who are becoming moms for the first time, and those in recovery looking for a fresh start.

When they come to Flourish, we fill an entire moving truck with furniture for their home including beds, sofas, chairs, dressers, bookshelves, dining tables and chairs. We also provide the things that really make a house a home like bedding, cookware, dishes, decor, artwork, and towels.

While serving a great need for home essentials in the community, we are also keeping more than 700 tons of items from going to landfill each year. We really live into our tagline, Where Compassion Meets Sustainability.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There is great abundance in the community and we love to share items from one neighbor to another. The hard work is collecting, cleaning and refurbishing items, and then sending them back out to the community. We ALWAYS need more volunteers to help us do this very hard work. The good news is, we have something for everyone at our warehouse!

Volunteers can go out on the trucks to help pick up donations, sort donations, vacuum furniture, put together dish sets or kitchen kits, work in our sewing/upholstery or woodworking workshops, load moving trucks, pack moving boxes, move furniture within the warehouse, or serve as a host for our guests. For some, this is a great cross-fit workout, for others, it is a relaxing day measuring blankets or sewing comforters. All skill levels are welcome!

In addition to our volunteer hours from 8:30am – 12:30pm Tuesday – Saturday, we also have a Tuesday evening shift and afternoon opportunities for volunteers.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am the Executive Director at Flourish, Kansas City’s only furniture bank. I have worked in the nonprofit sector for many years focusing on funding and development, including owning my own nonprofit consulting business.

Flourish provides an opportunity to work with a wide variety of organizations throughout the metro area and helping them do more in the community. Our mission is laser focused on furniture and home essentials, and we are able to take that off the already overflowing workload of hundreds of case managers each year.

I love the thought of not only building Flourish’s capacity to serve more families, but also the capacity of other agencies.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
If you love helping families build a new life or if you love keeping items out of landfills and giving them another life in someone’s home, Flourish is the place for you!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://flourishfurniturebank.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flourishfurniturebank
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flourishkc
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/flourishfurniturebank