12/15/2008 – Lewis Floor & Home donates during the Holiday Season

Lewis Floor & Home donates during the Holiday Season LEWIS FLOOR & HOME DONATES FLOOR TO DOMESTIC WOMEN’S SHELTER Family owned and operated business helps out when needed during the holiday season The holidays are a time for giving and celebrating the season with family and friends. It is also a time when local businesses can give back to their community. Lewis Floor & Home, located in Northbrook and Chicago, immediately responded to a request from Orren Pickell Designers & Builders, to donate flooring for an emergency shelter located in the northwest suburbs which provides safe, temporary housing for women and children fleeing abusive homes. Women from Chicago and its surrounding suburbs rely on Lewis Floor & Home to help them decorate their homes with beautiful products that uplift their spirits. Unfortunately, the grim reality is that due to domestic violence some women have to leave their homes. Lewis Floor & Homes is honored, especially during the holiday season, to provide the shelter with a beautiful floor to help these women who are being displaced out of their homes feel welcome and warm in a temporary home situation. The new 1,000 square feet of laminate flooring will be replacing worn out carpeting in the children’s playroom/meeting area and will offer ease of cleaning as well as durabity. “We are proud to help HomeAid Chicago, the official charity of the Home Builders Association of Greater Chicago and its volunteers led by Orren Pickell Designers & Builders and Griffin & Associates,” says President and third generation owner Steven Lewis of Lewis Floor & Home. “With more than 54 years in business our goal has always been to provide quality products to the community as well as support community organizations in times of need. During the holiday season, it is especially appropriate to offer help to the less fortunate. Domestic violence destroys lives both physically and emotionally. And with many husbands and fathers unemployed or facing uncertain job security, violence may escalate resulting in more women and children needing emergency shelter assistance.” A Safe Place emergency shelter allows women and children to be housed for up to six weeks and provides the only option from preventing them from living on the streets. Residents also receive food, clothing, counseling and more to help them build new lives that are financially independent and free from abuse. In the past year, 96 percent of the women who resided in the emergency shelter were able to move on to housing that was separate from their abuser. In the 2008 fiscal year, 224 women and 206 children stayed at the emergency shelter. During the sixteen years the shelter has been open it has sheltered over 8,000 clients. “HomeAid Chicago is thankful to Lewis Floor & Home that despite these tough economic times, it continues to see the value of giving back to their community,” says Natalie R. Ashton, executive director, HomeAid Chicago.”