It all started in the shower- maybe not the beginning you were picturing if you’ve never heard this story before.

Noel during the very first Renest

Noel Haacker, our Founder and Executive Director, an interior designer, owned her own business and was busy raising 3 kids. Towards the end of 2006, she felt a gentle nudge to do more, something else, a new project, perhaps? A business expansion? She wasn’t sure, so she prayed about it and waited patiently for inspiration and direction.

And, as He is wont to do, God planted a seed in her heart and head. One morning in the shower, late October 2009 she suddenly knew- it would be called Renesting and it would serve the homeless by providing furniture and household items, with the motto “reclaim, renew, and renest.”

By January 2010, Renesting Project, Inc. was launched under Asbury United Methodist church while it awaited it’s 501(c)3 designation. Asbury served as our home for 9 months. In the fall of 2010, we moved to a warehouse on E. Texas Street in Bossier City. We continued to grow and to serve and eventually needed to move again!

Preparing for Christmas

That’s how we got to our first warehouse on Driftwood Drive. Then in 2017, Renesting was presented with the possibility of upgrading our warehouse once again! We moved down the road to our current warehouse at 1331 Driftwood Drive, complete with office space, kitchen, and three big warehouse doors for packing up clients and unloading donations of furniture and household goods.

In that same year, Renesting’s Board of Directors voted to revise and broaden the mission statement to “provide gently used furniture and household items to those in need.” Our service expanded to include not only those transitioning from homelessness but those at risk of becoming homeless.

Gathering donations at Asbury in January 2010

Last year, in 2019 we celebrated our 10th anniversary at a fundraiser we called RE2019. We’ve come so far from the early days, gathering in the parking lot behind Asbury UMC to serve our communities’ homeless, and now planning our services for those that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Renesting Project, Inc. always looks for ways to connect with our community and have created other ‘happenings’ at the warehouse, including the Pop Up Auction and Sharing of the Season.

Our growth and success over the past nearly eleven years is due in major part to our wonderful volunteers and donors, including the many individuals that have served on our board. This blog was created for them and you! A way to share the many stories that together tell the history of Renesting as an organization and as a community of loving and dedicated people.

Comment below:
How long have you been donating or volunteering with Renesting?

A trailer full of donated furniture outside Asbury