This Hyattsville group helps furnish homes for free. It needs a home, too.

On a recent Saturday morning, Marc Lawson was finishing a cigarette on the stoop of his Brentwood apartment when a U-Haul truck started backing up to the building.

He had moved in a week and a half earlier, but the one-bedroom was mostly unfurnished outside of the microwave his friend had given him.

After parking the box truck, Ali Nelson Booth and her passenger, BJ Cameron, started hauling: a box spring, a queen mattress and a blue couch with coral-like patterns.

Lawson, 54, tried to help where he could, but he struggled a bit to keep his breathing steady.

He’s recovering from two stabbings, the most recent of which he said occurred on Father’s Day weekend and left him with a punctured lung. Lawson had been living in a safe house for 3 1/2 months while cutting off contact with the woman who Lawson said stabbed him on both occasions.

“I lost everything,” said Lawson, a paramedic and phlebotomist. “I lost my job. I lost my car. I lost where I lived.”

The items making their way into Lawson’s new home traveled from an old Masonic lodge in Hyattsville, less than two miles away.

For more than a year, volunteers with Welcome Home Neighbor have been organizing and moving furniture and fixtures out of the run-down old lodge at 4207 Gallatin St. and delivering them into homes like Lawson’s. But they must leave their home by the end of October and are searching for a new one — the lodge, which they’ve been occupying for free, is expected to be leased to a paying tenant.

‘A source of pride’

Nelson Booth, the group’s volunteer coordinator, and Cameron had no idea what Lawson had been through. But they’ve heard similar stories in recent months. The initiative has helped more than 150 individuals and families since it started more than four years ago, according to the group’s data. In some cases, the volunteers have assisted people multiple times. Many have experienced homelessness or domestic violence and are moving from shelters into new homes throughout Prince George’s County.

Welcome Home Neighbor is organized in the tradition of mutual aid groups that have sprung up in recent years. They make and accept donations of home goods ranging from bed frames and linens to children’s books and toys. Members, mostly neighbors in Hyattsville, communicate through an email listserv managed by Nelson Booth.

“It’s just such a source of pride that the community continues to show up for our families,” said Jamila Larson, co-founder of Welcome Home Neighbor.

The organization previously rented a storage locker to hold their donations. They moved into Gallatin Street thanks to Kayleigh Kulp, a real estate agent who agreed to give them free use of the space until she could lease it to a prospective business.

At the end of August, Kulp gave them notice that they’ll need to vacate by the end of October to make way for a new development. Larson and her team have been working hard to get as much out the door as possible while searching for a permanent home for their operations.

But Larson said Welcome Home Neighbor will likely have to pause operations at the end of October because no suitable properties have become available. Larson said the remaining items in storage will go to Hyattsville’s Community Forklift or be given away through Buy Nothing groups on Facebook. She and co-founder Mark Betancourt, a freelance journalist, said their ideal next setup would be a no- or low-cost space that would be a permanent fixture in the county.

“It’s very clear how close we actually are; having that experience of working together really demystifies the distances between people a little bit more,” Betancourt, 45, said. “It makes you feel closer to the people around you, and there’s nothing like working together to bring people together.”

Striking out

The group would like to partner with nonprofits and other groups doing similar work. They also reached out to county leaders for assistance but have mostly been rebuffed, Larson and Betancourt said.

The group had inquired about a county building on Rhode Island Avenue, situated near the district court and a police station, but was told it was unavailable because of its condition.

Larson stressed that for any potential new home, they don’t need the space to be habitable in a traditional sense. The lodge has no electricity or water, and they’ve made do through sweltering summers and chilling winters.

Larson, Betancourt and the other volunteers say they feel tired but not defeated by the scramble to find a new space and wish county leaders would support and engage with their work, but they have heard little beyond some email correspondence.

But their work gets easier when people like April Turner browse their warehouse, eager to pick out items to hit the reset button on her life.

Turner, 42, is a curriculum specialist and had a couple of children’s books in her hand on that recent Saturday. She said that just the day prior, she and two of her children moved into a Brentwood home and needed beds, comforters and other furnishings after leaving a heated domestic situation with her kids’ father in July.

“The person like me, to be established in a career as an educator, you would think, ‘Oh my gosh, she doesn’t need this. This doesn’t happen,’” Turner said. “But yes, we do, right? So, it means a lot to be acknowledged as that and not just be shunned.

“Help doesn’t have a salary cap or age limit.”

Turner had been browsing the goods while waiting for Nelson Booth and Cameron to return from their move down the road.

Giving back

Lawson had just helped lug the queen-size mattress into his bedroom. He stopped to reflect on what the Welcome Home Neighbor initiative had done for him.

“It’s life-saving right now,” Lawson said as he helped Nelson Booth set up the box spring.

“Because I’m really starting all the way back over, especially at my age.”

They stood in the living room of Lawson’s apartment, which had filled up in less than an hour. Nelson Booth and Cameron took a breath and told Lawson they were going to hit the road, but if he needed anything else, he could call or email them.

“All right, we have one more family to deliver to today,” Nelson Booth said.

“That’s awesome,” Lawson said.

They offered their hands, but he took them both in for a hug. He did have one more thing to ask.

“Y’all hiring?” Lawson asked.

“We’re volunteers,” Nelson Booth answered.

“I would love to help out sometime,” Lawson said. “If y’all can do this for me, that means I can do it for somebody else.

“You gotta give back.”

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