“No! I want to be on the top [bunk]!”
“No! I want to be on the top [bunk]!”
Blake and Benedict Nkrumah playfully spar over where each brother will sleep once their new bunk bed is put in their room. Their father, Petty Officer Benedict Nkrumah, just moved the family from where he was previously stationed in Okinawa. Their home in Japan had been furnished, and given the high living cost in San Diego, Nkrumah reached out to Operation Homefront for help with furniture.
Operation Homefront is a nonprofit that supports junior enlisted service members.
“They want to make sure to stretch their income as much as they can,” Kristine Jansen with Operation Homefront tells NBC 7. “Due to the salary he wasn’t able to completely purchase all of the furniture so we were able to provide all of his furniture today.”
Jerome’s Furniture donated everything from the boys’ beds to living room couches to a dining room table. Jerome’s had recently partnered with Operation Homefront to furnish free transitional housing units.
“We’re very thankful. It’s a very good resource,” Petty Officer Nkrumah says. He has been in the Navy for more than eight years, and has lived at several duty stations. “It’s going to be a very good and nice experience – blessing to have all this.”
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Blake, Benedict and little brother Bice used to have their whole empty house to play soccer in, but now that the living room is furnished with couches, “maybe we’ll play outside,” Blake suggests.
The Nkrumah family received 35 pieces of furniture in total from Jerome's and now have a fully furnished apartment.
