Bay Area real estate broker partners with church, moving company to collect furniture for families in need

OLDSMAR, Fla. - A new three-way partnership between an Oldsmar real estate broker, a moving company, and a church aims to collect unwanted furniture and goods to donate to families in need. 

Jodi Avery has been a Keller Williams real estate broker for the past 20 years. She said recently she's noticed about three out of every five of her clients moving in or out of a home find themselves with too many things.

"I get houses and houses full of furniture, and it's household goods, couches, furniture, canned goods. Everything you can think of," she said. "A lot of my clients don't know what to do with these goods, so they end up either throwing things away or panicking during a move and just saying, 'we don't want it,' and they just roll it out to the front of the street."

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Last month, while attending Grace & Faith Church, she came up with a solution when Lead Pastor Rob Scarallo put out a call to action. 

"Unfortunately, we are having a financial crisis in our nation, and we have noticed the needs amongst the congregation and outside the congregation have just climbed dramatically," he said. 

Scarallo said in the past six months, he's had three to four families a week reach out to the church for help. 

"It really creates a shock to the system and a crisis for families. They're suddenly way out of their depth," he said.

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Avery and Scarallo put their heads together. 

"My goal was to say, 'hey I've got to connect the furniture that is coming to me and put it to families in need," she said. 

Paul Hauls Moving stepped up too. 

"I called up my mover who moves furniture and I talked to him about this," she said. "We met together with the pastor, and he agreed to donate not only his trucks, but his staff and all of his resources to get the furniture here."

Since then, the partnership has collected items in a room at the church with the goal of transforming it into a thrift store in 2024. If you have furniture, household items, clothing, canned goods you'd like to donate, contact Avery at jodimavery@gmail.com.