Betty Bacon and her husband turned a small mom-and-pop furniture store into a chain of stores with 14 locations throughout Southwest Florida.

Betty Bacon, who died Sept. 4 at age 85, and her husband, Robert, bought Palmer Furniture shortly after moving to Port Charlotte from Fort Myers in 1973.

The family-owned business, which featured moderately priced new and used furniture, expanded with the help of their four grown children.

Betty Bacon remained a fixture at the Port Charlotte store, renamed Bacon’s Furniture, after she and her husband sold the company to one of their sons in 1987 and retired.

For the next 15 years, Betty Bacon continued to regularly drop by on Saturday mornings to mingle with customers and co-workers over coffee and her fresh-baked cookies, said her son, Bill Bacon, of Port Charlotte. Read more »

Furniture Clearing House, located at 607 Rolla Street, carries new name-brand pieces that have been discontinued, overstock pieces and scratched and dented items at large discounts off suggested and regular retail, as well as quality used furniture, furniture liquidations and antiques.

You will find unique items like antique baby cribs, medical lift chairs, marble sofa tables and much more.

People may think that Rolla needs another furniture store like it needs another fast-food restaurant, but this one is quite different. And although there are no signs up on the outside of the building yet, have no doubt, they are open for business.

“The exciting thing about Furniture Clearing House,” said employee Charlotte Govro, “is that a large majority of our stock changes daily. It’s a whole new store every time you come in. We also carry Howard wood products, a phenomenal product, and we have Halo Candles in the store.” Read more »

The National Furniture Bank Association, Decatur, Ga., has announced an additional sponsorship level, “Help1Up Friend,” to accommodate individuals and corporations of all sizes wishing to get involved with furniture banks.

NFBA administers Help1Up, the home furnishings industry’s free, socially responsible, and environmentally friendly used furniture removal service for the general public. The service is made possible through a network of dozens of furniture banks across the country, which then provide the furnishings directly to families in need. Typical recipients of the used furniture are women and children escaping domestic violence, families living below the poverty line, and victims of natural disasters.

The new Help1Up Friend sponsorship is $100. Read more »

The furniture industry is very important in Adams County and, more specifically, in Berne. The city is known as the furniture capital of Indiana.

But just who came up with that title?

According to Connie Potter, executive director of the Berne Chamber of Commerce, an employee of one of the four original furniture factories noticed that for a town the size of Berne, there was a lot of furniture being made and decided to call the city the furniture capital of Indiana.

“It’s pretty much a self-proclaimed thing, but nobody’s ever disputed it,” Potter said. “I guess you could just say it fits.”

At one time, Berne was home to four furniture factories and three furniture stores. The four factories were Dunbar Furniture Co., Berne Furniture, Smith Brothers of Berne and Swiss City Furniture. Read more »

Responding to industry requests, the non-profit National Furniture Bank Association (NFBA) announced that it is offering an additional sponsorship level, Help1Up Friend, to accommodate individuals and corporations of all sizes wishing to get involved.

Help1Up is the home furnishings industry’s free, socially responsible, and environmentally friendly used furniture removal service for the general public. This service is made possible through a network of dozens of furniture banks across the country. Furniture banks collect used home furnishings from the public, give the donor a tax receipt, then provide the furnishings directly to families in need. Typical recipients of the used furniture are women and children escaping domestic violence, families living below the poverty line, and victims of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

The Help1Up Friend sponsorship is $100.

“We’ve had many requests from individuals asking how they can support us,” said NFBA executive director Don Lawrence. “People who become a Help1Up Friend are not only ensuring that we can keep opening more furniture banks, but they also demonstrate their commitment publicly and setting an example for others to follow.” Read more »

Approximately 25 trucks converged at Drake University on Thursday to load used furniture from residence halls for a variety of nonprofit organizations across Iowa.

The university offered more than 350 sets of furniture – bed, desk, chair and dresser – to charitable groups and government agencies throughout the state. Most of the items came from Stalnaker and Crawford residence halls, which will be renovated this summer and outfitted with new furniture selected by students.

Organizations from Cedar Rapids, Mount Pleasant, Marshalltown and Sioux City were among those that responded to Drake’s offer, said Mark Hines, a maintenance supervisor who coordinated the project for the university. Read more »

Boll Furniture Co., a Charleston mainstay for 69 years, is closing, the company announced in an advertising flyer.

The flyer says, “It’s sad but true, we have made the difficult decision to close our doors in Charleston forever.”

The store’s going-out-of-business sale will start Thursday with a special event for preferred customers and invited guests, according to the flyer. Read more »

In the aftermath of two major floods, and following a declaration by President George W. Bush designating Westchester County a federal disaster area, a new resource has opened that provides furniture, and some much-needed hope, to those in need.

Furniture Sharehouse celebrated its official opening on April 24 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Westchester County airport where it has its base. Its warehouse is filled with gently-used furniture that will be distributed to families and individuals through social service agencies that have partnered with the Sharehouse. The furniture bank is a community project sponsored by The Junior League of Westchester on the Sound. Read more »

Though they’re barely 40 years old, the undesirable waffle-ceilinged, brick-walled dorms of the Butler College quad will be demolished this summer, to be replaced with more desirable dorms by the fall of 2009.

But what about the hundreds of beds, desks and chairs etched with students’ names and graduation years? They’re going to go somewhere — though the University doesn’t yet know where.

“There’s no reason that the stuff should be thrown away,” Butler resident Carrie Carpenter ’09 said.

And the bottom line, Director of Building Sevices Jonathan Baer said, is that the furniture from the demolished dorms will not be thrown out. The University has a system in place that allows academic departments and local charities to claim the items. Read more »

Great things appear to be in store for Great Things in Store, a new venture of the Parker Street Food and Furniture Bank in Halifax.

The Almon Street business was crowded with people eager for the ribbon-cutting to end and the shopping to begin Sunday afternoon.

The store sells good-quality used furniture and clothes and new small appliances and other wares that might have scratches or dents keeping them off department store shelves.

The revenue will help the charity provide necessities for those who can’t afford them.

“We operate a very busy food bank, furniture bank and training centre and we’re always struggling to find ways and means to generate enough money to keep it all going,” Parker Street executive director Mel Boutilier said as shoppers quickly formed a line at the cash register. Read more »