Every year, Mattress Firm hosts a week-long leadership conference called BEDTalks. Over one thousand Mattress Firm employees and vendor partners from across the country come together to learn, have fun and celebrate our team members who do outstanding work every day.

This year, BEDTalks was held in Mattress Firm's hometown of Houston, TX. One of the days of the four-day long meeting is always dedicated to giving back, and for the last several years that has included Mattress Firm employees working together to raise money and support the Mattress Firm Foster Kids program through donations to the Ticket to Dream Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization.

Mattress Firm Gives Big

On Wednesday, May 10, we hosted our annual “Give BIG" day which is a favorite day for many of the attendees, including myself.

This year was a little different, because we challenged our attendees to create online fundraisers to raise $150,000 for the Ticket to Dream Foundation. These funds will help foster kids of all ages participate in extra-curricular activities like sports, music, and dance! We didn't just raise the goal we set, we exceeded that by raising an amazing $257,000 in the weeks leading up to the event. Combined with additional fundraising at BEDTalks, we raised $435,000 for foster kids nationwide. So, when we went to Give Big Day, we made sure to mix in the philanthropy with a whole lot of fun.

Activ8

Fitting with our BEDTalks theme, which was “ACTIV8", we gave each Mattress Firm employee an opportunity to participate in our Foster Fitness Fair. We set up four different outdoor activities, along with a station for participants to help fill 2,000 duffel bags with athletic and fun items for foster children. Everyone enjoyed a fun run, an obstacle course, a Zumba class, and then a 3 on 3 basketball game.

We also had a special visitor who came to help out – Houston Texans star JJ Watt! JJ brought a ton of all-star energy to our day; he joined in and did the obstacle course with Cory Ludens, Mattress Firm's VP of Culture and Events, and then worked with Mattress Firm employees to help fill some of the duffel bags and wrote inspirational cards to foster kids.

There were also several other ways for our team members to give back, including an opportunity to donate in a paddle raise, purchase silent auction items and purchase special Mattress Firm products and merchandise, with profits benefiting the Ticket to Dream Foundation.

This event was so important to me, because it really reflects Mattress Firm Foster Kids tagline: “Not everyone can be a foster parent, but anyone can help a foster child." It's true! Our Mattress Firm employees are such a huge part of our programs success, and we're so glad that they could join together from all over the country to help out in such a meaningful (and fun!) way.