Walker Furniture’s deliveries help make holidays brighter

With tears of joy in her eyes and gasping to catch her breath, Glenda Saylor could barely say "Thank you" as employees from Walker Furniture filled her empty apartment with brand-new furniture. Her appreciation, nevertheless, was clearly evident.

"It's like a dream come true," she said. "I'm tired of sleeping on the floor. Tonight, I can sleep in a real bed."

Glenda Saylor and her husband, Dell, were one of 36 families who received a houseful of new furniture compliments of Walker through its annual Home for the Holidays program.

"I've seen it on TV, but I never thought it would be my dream come true," Glenda Saylor said of the charitable program.

Through its Home for the Holidays program, Walker delivers a houseful of brand-new furniture for the bedroom, dining room and living room, depending on each family's needs. One of the priorities is to ensure that each person living in the house has a new bed to sleep on.

"Of all the years we've been delivering furniture, I think this is the most beautiful furniture I have ever seen," Alterwitz told the Saylors.

Alterwitz said it's the joy he and the entire staff at Walker receives from helping others and making a big difference in their lives that keeps the program going and growing each year. The first year, the company aided 12 families.

Alterwitz said he goes to as many deliveries as he can to see the recipients' joy and what changes the furniture will make in their lives.

The Saylors were nominated for the gift by Kathy Johnson and Joan Wert, who met the couple at the rehabilitation center Dell Saylor was sent to after a lengthy hospital stay. Johnson's son and Wert's husband also are patients at the facility.

"Dell and Glenda Saylor were barely getting by when he suffered a stroke," Johnson wrote in her nomination letter.

According to Johnson and Wert, Glenda Saylor lived in a shelter for several months until she received assistance getting into a one-bedroom apartment. Both Glenda and Dell Saylor are in their late 50s, have diabetes and are insulin dependent.

"She has absolutely nothing in regard to furniture. She only has a mattress on the floor to sleep on," Johnson wrote.

"I've never seen anyone more deserving than her. I don't think she's ever had anything new in her life before," Wert said while watching her friend receive her early holiday present.

For the Saylors, the new furniture offers more than just a place to sit and sleep. Dell Saylor said it is incentive for him to walk again and leave the confines of his hospital bed and wheelchair.

"It makes me want to do better. It encourages me," he said, adding that he knows that one day he will be able to sit on their new couch.