How your Season for Caring donations can help this year
This year’s Season for Caring featured families talk about their lives and how the program can help them.
Nicole Villalpando, Austin American-Statesman
When the Abraha family was in a refugee camp in Ethiopia for six years, they lived in a tent with a dirt floor. They would make a mound out of mud and put a mat on top of it and sleep on that each night.
“We didn’t have a bed,” said Azeb Tesfay, 37, the matriarch of the Abraha family.
When Tesfay, her husband, their three kids and their niece came to the United States three years ago, a nonprofit that helps refugees gave them gently used mattresses. Other friends donated a frame.
Last year, Tesfay was having back problems and found a bed for herself that was heavily discounted. She took out a $500 loan so that she could sleep at night.
On Friday, Factory Mattress delivered new beds, one each for the three older kids and for niece Tahaguas Abraha for when she is home from the University of Texas, where she is a freshman. Baby Yowhans, who was born last year, is still in a crib.
Of the kids, Tesfay said, “they will be happy. When they are happy, then we are happy.”
This year, Factory Mattress donated $26,341 worth of beds to all the Statesman Season for Caring families. Since 2010, Factory Mattress has given $226,273 to the program.
“We are a local, family-owned company,” said Stephen Frey Jr., the president of Factory Mattress. His family started the business 44 years ago. “We have the ability to give back to those in need and give help to Central Texas where we can.”
The company continues to work with Season for Caring because of the vetting the Statesman does on the nonprofit organizations and the families they nominate. “You do such a good job of connecting with different families that need it the most,” he said.
Statesman Season for Caring highlights the needs of featured families that have been nominated by local nonprofits. Their needs are taken care of first and then the nonprofits use additional money to help hundreds of families with basic needs including rent, utilities, groceries and medical care.
The Abraha family was nominated by Interfaith Action of Central Texas, which works with faith communities to help refugees and other vulnerable populations.
Read more: Tahaguas Abraha: UT nursing student left home in Africa for better education
This year’s ask of Factory Mattress was an especially difficult task because of the very real supply chain issues.
“It’s been a crazy year,” Frey said. “It’s been a crapshoot. When one vendor catches up, another vendor falls behind.”
Sometimes they get deliveries twice a week; sometimes they wait for six weeks.
Factory Mattress rented additional warehouse space and ordered “extremely heavy” Frey said, in anticipation of the needs for customers and Season for Caring.
For the Abraha family, many needs have been met by Season for Caring donors buying items on their Amazon wish list. They still need help with an immigration attorney to get Tahaguas’ brother to Austin from the refugee camp in Ethiopia, as well as help with their refugee travel loans. They also would like a seven-passenger vehicle and a car seat for the baby as well as help with Tahaguas’ tuition.
To donate an item on their wish list or for more information on the family, contact Interfaith Action of Central Texas, 512-386-9145, interfaithtexas.org
More help needed: ‘A heartbreaking time’: Pandemic felt most by families Austin’s nonprofits serve
Donate to Statesman Season for Caring
Now through Christmas, the Sheth family is matching up to $500,000 in donations.
Find out more about Season for Caring, read the stories of the featured families and make a donation at statesman.com/seasonforcaring. You also can find a coupon to mail in a donation on Page 2B.
