100 kids receive beds in surprise giveaway
As soon as University of Memphis head football coach Mike Norvell asked the 60 kids on the floor in front of him to yell, “Go Tigers,” 9-year-old Jaysun Alexander was sure he knew what came next.
“The Tiger mascot’s gonna come out,” he said to his peers around him. “I know I’m right.”
He was not right. But he was still thrilled.
What was around the corner, on the faux football field inside the Billy J. Murphy Athletic Complex, were 100 new twin beds for local children, most of whom had never had a bed of their own.
About 60 were able to attend the giveaway Saturday, and the rest will still have their beds delivered.
The event was a surprise for the kids, who all thought they were just there to hang out and play with some Memphis football players. They did that, too.
But then they gathered in the weight room, where Ashley Homestore Chief Sales Officer Arnie Capitanelli asked how many of them wanted to attend the University of Memphis one day.
Sixty hands shot in the air, and Capitanelli started recapping what it would take to get there. High on the list: lots of sleep.
The furniture company, he explained, learned boys and girls just like them were sleeping at night without a bed.
“We couldn’t handle that,” he told them, and unveiled the real reason they were there.
The company was giving them new beds that were in the next room, he said, and they could run and find the one with their name on it.
Children as old as 17 and as young as 2 dashed down the hallway, onto the practice field, and took running leaps onto their bed.
“It’s soft!” 8-year-old Alyssia Patrick said of her purple bed.
“Blue’s my favorite color, but I like this bed,” she declared.
Alyssia and three of her five siblings, part of the Boys and Girls Club of Memphis, all received beds Saturday.
“I jumped on it!” 10-year-old sister Aakia Patrick said. She and Alyssia share a room, Aakia said, and her pink bed will join her sister’s purple one.
For Jameshia Ratliff, the bed giveaway was a relief — one less thing she has to stress over providing for her two children, Zaniylah Thomas, 2, and Triniyah Thomas, 1. “I think that it’s a blessing,” she said. Zaniylah ran right to her bed and jumped on it.
“She’s already got candy on the cover,” her mother said.
For 9-year-old Jaysun, it was a little disappointing not seeing a giant Tiger walk through the door. But the bed was better, he said.
And his first action upon seeing it, after a morning of running around outside with college football players: “I took a nap,” he said.
Reach Jennifer Pignolet at jennifer.pignolet@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @JenPignolet.