A donation of 40 brand-new furniture pieces supports A Sense of Home in transforming empty residences into places of safety, dignity, and belonging.
SICOTAS and A Sense of Home team members and volunteers gather during a community partnership event in Los Angeles.
By SICOTAS Communications | Ontario, California | July 31, 2026
SICOTAS has partnered with A Sense of Home, a Los Angeles nonprofit, to support home transformation and disaster recovery work across Southern California. The collaboration brings together thoughtful furniture design, volunteer action, and a shared belief that a home is the foundation from which people rebuild their lives.
A partnership with purpose, measured in everyday moments
Rachel Stich, Chief Executive Officer of A Sense of Home, explains why a thoughtfully furnished home can restore safety, belonging, and the confidence to move forward.
Through the partnership, SICOTAS donated 40 pieces of brand-new furniture to support A Sense of Home’s Disaster Recovery Program. The donation included essential furnishings selected to help recipients create safe, comfortable, and functional living spaces as they begin a new chapter.
The collaboration reflects SICOTAS’s belief that furniture is more than a product. A bed supports rest. A dining table creates a place to gather. A dresser brings order to daily life. Together, these pieces help turn an empty residence into a place of stability, dignity, and belonging.
“A home is where people begin to rebuild their lives. We are honored to help create a place where they can truly feel at home.”
— Charlene Yang, Marketing Director, SICOTAS
For SICOTAS, the partnership offered a direct way to connect product design with purpose. The donated pieces were not treated as stand-alone objects, but as part of a larger environment intended to restore comfort, function, and a sense of belonging.
More than four walls
For many recipients, a furnished home marks an important milestone after foster care, housing insecurity, displacement, or disaster. Housing provides shelter; a thoughtfully furnished home can also provide comfort, routine, identity, and a foundation for moving forward.
“Home is more than just a roof or four walls. It is a feeling of safety, security, belonging, and inspiration.”
— Rachel Stich, Chief Executive Officer, A Sense of Home
Stich said beautiful, practical furniture can change how a recipient experiences a new space and support the ability to feel comfortable, healthy, and ready to thrive.
The overlooked step after finding housing
Alistair Campbell, Managing Director of the Disaster Recovery Program at A Sense of Home, describes why furniture is essential after a family secures new housing.
For families who have lost everything in a wildfire, locating a new house or apartment is only one step in a much longer recovery process. New housing may still be completely empty, leaving families without the basic items that make everyday life possible.
Campbell noted that a furnished home provides more than practical necessities. For people recovering from trauma, it can restore a sense of safety and create a stable home base from which they can begin rebuilding their lives.
“Once someone has found a new place to live, it’s furnishing that new home—beds for the kids, a sofa after a long day, or a dining table for a family meal.”
— Alistair Campbell, Managing Director, Disaster Recovery Program
Designed around each recipient
A Sense of Home volunteers carefully curate furnishings for each recipient based on household needs, preferred colors, and design style. The process is meant to ensure that recipients are not simply given available items, but are welcomed into a space that feels considered, dignified, and their own.
This attention to detail aligns naturally with SICOTAS’s commitment to simplicity, comfort, and taste. The furniture becomes part of a complete living environment—one designed to support daily routines, personal identity, and a lasting sense of home.
Recovery is a full-time job
For wildfire survivor Andres Martinez, receiving furniture means more than replacing what was lost. It gives his family room to live while preserving limited resources for rebuilding.
Andres Martinez, a wildfire survivor, describes the daily work of rebuilding his family’s life and the relief provided by donated furniture.
For Martinez and his wife, recovery continues after the regular workday ends. They divide the responsibilities of locating aid, completing applications, contacting utility companies, speaking with legal teams, and planning how to rebuild their home.
The wildfire took everything. For the past year and a half, many everyday necessities—including clothing, shoes, and eyeglasses—have come through donations. Each source of help allows the family to be more conservative with its limited funds and keep rebuilding as the larger goal.
“It’s a full-time job to recover.”
— Andres Martinez, wildfire survivor
The night before receiving the furniture, the family dusted, mopped, and vacuumed the empty space. Martinez knew that within hours it would begin to function as a home again: “We don’t have to eat on the floor. We actually have chairs to sit in.”
For his two sons, the furnished space provides a comfortable place to return to, sit together, and reconnect. By helping replace essential furniture, SICOTAS and A Sense of Home also allow the family to direct more of its resources toward rebuilding the house itself.
Furniture made to belong in any home
For wildfire survivor and A Sense of Home volunteer Andie Cohen-Healy, SICOTAS’s understated designs offer recipients the freedom to shape a new space around their own lives.
Andie Cohen-Healy, a wildfire survivor, A Sense of Home volunteer, and former design professional, views one of the SICOTAS pieces donated for home recovery efforts.
Andie Cohen-Healy knows that a room can carry far more than function. After experiencing wildfire loss herself, she returned to volunteer with A Sense of Home, bringing both personal understanding and a professional background in design to the work of helping other families rebuild.
During the community partnership event, Cohen-Healy pointed to the qualities that make SICOTAS furniture especially useful across many homes: a restrained palette, clean lines, and an elegance that does not dictate a single look.
“It’s neutral and it’s elegant. You could have any style—classical, beachy, minimalist, even Japanese-inspired—and this can fit in anything.”
— Andie Cohen-Healy, A Sense of Home volunteer
Her perspective adds a practical dimension to the partnership. Every recipient brings different tastes, possessions, and plans to a new space. Furniture that adapts rather than overwhelms gives people room to create a home that feels personal.
That flexibility is central to SICOTAS’s contribution. The donated pieces can complement different colors and aesthetics, allowing each family to make the furniture part of a home that reflects who they are—not simply a room that has been filled.
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Building homes, building community
The partnership extends beyond furniture. Volunteers help select, present, and prepare the items, often sharing words of encouragement with recipients. Some former recipients and wildfire survivors later return to volunteer, turning their own recovery experiences into support for others.
Volunteers help create a warm, community-driven experience for recipients.
Charlene Yang of SICOTAS speaks with Rachel Stich, CEO of A Sense of Home.
SICOTAS documented the collaboration to share the people and stories behind the work and to encourage broader community participation. The experience demonstrated how businesses, nonprofit organizations, and volunteers can combine their strengths to create meaningful, lasting impact—one home at a time.
“We hope every piece of furniture represents more than functionality. We hope it represents hope, comfort, and the beginning of a brighter future.”
— Charlene Yang, Marketing Director, SICOTAS
As SICOTAS continues to grow, community impact remains an important part of the company’s long-term vision. Rather than viewing corporate social responsibility as a one-time initiative, SICOTAS aims to develop lasting partnerships that align with its mission of making well-designed homes more accessible.
About SICOTAS
SICOTAS is a contemporary furniture brand dedicated to creating well-designed, functional furniture that combines Simplicity, Comfort, and Taste. From living rooms and bedrooms to home offices, SICOTAS designs products that help people create homes that are both beautiful and practical. Learn more at www.sicotas.com.
About A Sense of Home
A Sense of Home is a nonprofit organization that strives to prevent homelessness by creating furnished homes and providing a community of care for former foster youth and displaced individuals. Since 2015, A Sense of Home has created over 2,000 homes and served over 5,000 individuals, and recently expanded into New York to support the country’s second-largest foster youth population. Through volunteer-driven home creations and donated furnishings, the organization helps create environments where people can thrive with dignity and stability.
