Homeless veterans in the Washington, D.C., area have been given a big hand from Marymount University. Marymount donated more than $250,000 worth of used furniture and other items to help furnish transitional or permanent housing for them.
“Marymount has really been great,” said Elliot Duvall, outreach coordinator for the D.C. Office of Veterans Affairs. “This is really good starter furniture.”
The donation included more than 400 surplus beds, 80 chairs and 45 dressers, along with desks, filing cabinets and carpeting from the university’s Ballston Center, which is being redeveloped. According to Meg Dalmut, Marymount’s associate director of community engagement, the top one and a half floors of the building had been used as storage for years.
Coordinating the logistical aspects of the furniture pick-up was challenging, said Anne Vor der Bruegge, director of the Marymount University Nonprofit Resource Center in Partnership with the Arlington Community Foundation.
Dalmut and a group of volunteer veterans spent a Saturday moving kitchen equipment from the building affectionately nicknamed “The Blue Goose.” Last semester after a final exam, all of the students in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program helped load furniture for two hours. Altogether, more than 35 Marymount volunteers worked 300 combined hours moving furniture from the Ballston Center to a warehouse so it can be sent, as needed, to area veterans facilities.
“I’m just so happy it’s all going to good use,” Dalmut said. “So far we’ve already furnished 40 or 50 apartments.”
Duvall said his office has helped 360 people get off the street in the past two years.
“We see a lot of veterans from the D.C. area who are homeless – a lot more than people realize,” Duvall said. “And if they live in D.C., we can help them out, whether it’s with supportive services, claims or benefits.”
For more information or to donate furniture, contact Duvall at elliot.duvall@dc.gov.
PHOTO CAPTIONS:
Photo 1: Marymount alumna Barbara Dalmut and Elliot Duvall, community outreach coordinator of the Office of Veterans Affairs, move bed frames from Marymount’s Ballston Center. The university donated more than $250,000 worth of surplus furniture to the Office of Veterans Affairs. (Photo by Bob Brown)
Photo 2 : Meg Dalmut, Marymount’s director of community engagement, coordinated the donation of more than $250,000 worth of surplus furniture from the university to the Office of Veterans Affairs. (Photo by Bob Brown)
Photo 3: Marymount University student Zack Mandzik, ’16, hauls boxes out of the Ballston Center. (Photo by Bob Brown)
