Bridging Charity Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Bridging, which has a warehouse location in Roseville, is celebrating its 25^th anniversary today (Tuesday).

The celebration will take place from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at Pax Christi Catholic Community in Eden Prairie, Minn., where Fran Heitzman founded Bridging while working as a maintenance worker.

Since 1987, Bridging has grown from serving 100 local households in need annually to serving more than 4,000 households (12,000 people) a year, according to officials with the nonprofit. It will be serving its 60,000^th household this month.

Now the largest furniture bank in North America, Bridging has reduced landfill space by more than 128 million pounds over the past 25 years, officials with Bridging Inc. said.

From its Roseville location, Bridging has distributed more than 200,000 gently used furniture and household good items to some 11,000 households moving out of homlessness and poverty and into apartments or other living quarters.

Last fall, Bridging celebrated the fifth anniversary of its Roseville location. It's the latest milestone for the non-profit organization that has become so successful in distributing donated furniture and household goods free to needy people that it has outgrown serving people just from its Bloomington location.

Bridging is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization serving the greater Twin Cities.  To learn more and get involved, visit www.bridging.org.