Habitat for Humanity Kamloops reaping rewards of Sun Peaks Grand renovations

Oct 2, 2018 | 8:26 PM

KAMLOOPS — There’s a unique partnership underway, between one of the signature properties at Sun Peaks Resort, a local moving and storage company, and a Kamloops not-for-profit organization that helps build homes for those who otherwise couldn’t afford them.

The Sun Peaks Grand Hotel is renovating and instead of selling their used furniture and fixtures, they’ve been donating a large portion of it to Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Kamloops, which is having a significant positive impact

It’s a hectic time for the Sun Peaks Grand Hotel, as they rush to finish off some important renovations before the ski and snowboard season arrives.

“Right now we’ve got the fifth and the fourth floor off inventory, Sun Peaks Grand GM Vivek Sharma explains. “We get all our rooms back by the end of November, to be ready for our busy winter season.”

With such a tight window to make sure those renovations are completed, the question of what to do with all the used furniture from the rooms had to be answered quickly. Sharma says the Grand’s long partnership with Habitat for Humanity made donating the items easy.

“For us, I think it is more important that this furniture gets used in a way our community can benefit from it,” Sharma says. “For us, there was no better partner than Habitat for Humanity. We work with them all the time.”

Once the decision was made to donate many of the items in the hotel, such as headboards, TV’s, chairs and desks to Habitat for Humanity ReStore, the question of how to get down from the mountain arose. Which is where BigSteelBox enters the conversation.

“We partnered with Habitat to transfer all the items down and store them as long as needed, so – until everything’s sold,” BigSteelBox Kamloops Manager Adam Kaufman tells CFJC Today.

Big Steel Box has donated all the containers, as well as shipping and storage fees for the items. Once those items are loaded into the sea cans, BigSteelBox picks them up and brings them down off the mountain to the ReStore, where the furniture has been flying out of the store as fast they get it.

“It’s pretty gently used, and it’s amazing quality,” ReStore Assistant Manager Aaron Myers says. “It’s selling like crazy. we’ve already gone through almost two sea cans full of furniture.”

All this bodes well for Bill Miller, who has been Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity since May 2018. He says while other Habitat ReStore’s have well-established relationships that can provide donations like this, the partnership between the Kamloops ReStore and the Grand is the first of it’s kind for the local store. He’s pleased that relationship has provided significant benefit to his organization.

“It’s a major donation. There’s probably over 3000 pieces coming out of the hotel,” Miller says. “Obviously there’s a revenue side of this. It’ll provide a significant amount of revenue to ReStore, which actually funds the society, and it also funds the build.”

Which, of course, is the final goal of Habitat for Humanity: helping people from the Kamloops community enter the housing market when they might otherwise not be able to.