Back in the spring of 2020, while a student at UVA, Alec Brewer noticed something outside of his apartment complex that didn’t sit quite right: mattresses stacked 20-high, ready to be sent to the landfill. Around the same time, he was learning about the concept of customer discovery in one of his classes. He put two and two together and, with four co-founders, came up with Refurnished.
The nonprofit matches those in need with donated items—sofas, dressers, rugs, and, of course, mattresses.
“We’re the only nonprofit in the area that will accept mattresses under 10 years old with tags,” says Morgan Chung, the organization’s head outreach specialist.
Here’s how it works: After asking for furniture requests, Refurnished matches a donation with a recipient. From there, volunteers take care of the handoff.
“We realized that many people do not have a vehicle large enough to transport furniture or can’t afford a U-Haul, so we do everything from pickup to drop off,” Chung says. The nonprofit even cleans each donated piece before it gets matched with a recipient, who is often found through Refurnished’s partners, Habitat for Humanity and Come As You Are Cville.
Chung says inventory is at its most plentiful toward the end of the school year when students are moving out of their apartments, but the nonprofit has a catalog of currently available items on its website, refurnishedcville.org.
